


At a Distance, They Could Be Angels

by tinysocieties



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Card Captor Sakura AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-25 07:04:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6185263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysocieties/pseuds/tinysocieties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on Card Captor Sakura. Blaine has barely gotten used to the prophetic visions, now it turns out he has accidentally released a set of magical cards hidden in NYADA's Round Room. Or so claims Brittany, (current) Guardian of The Book, who charges him with the task of getting them all back and sealing them away before disaster strikes. Playing superhero seems doable enough but things do get a lot more confusing when Blaine meets Kurt, fellow NYADA student, experienced magic wielder and the star of one of Blaine's most distressing visions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to thank my dear friend Maz who, despite the time difference, allowed me to bounce so many ideas off her and helped me decide who should be playing who in this weird adaption of Card Captor Sakura, lol, and was also kind enough to beta this thing for me! You're the greatest <3
> 
> And of course Rose, for your [amazing artwork](http://cheesecakeforks.tumblr.com/post/141408553598/based-on-card-captor-sakura-blaine-has-barely) <3 I'm so happy I got someone so talented who was also a fan of CSS and managed to portray such a perfect mix of CLAMP art and the special brand of craziness that is Glee!

When Blaine checks his phone before stepping out into the hall it's a quarter to nine on the dot so if he takes the shortcut through the quad he can squeeze one extra minute of practice before group singing class. Except—

Except he's at Kurt's, on Kurt's couch, carefully wrapped up in a mustard cardigan he chose just for Kurt because once it'd made Kurt run his hands over Blaine's shoulders and down his arms until he had Blaine's fingers gripping his tight, and he'd swung their linked hands, and he'd been happy.

He's not happy now.

"Blaine," says Kurt, "I'm glad you could make it," and it's a lie.

 _Stop_ , Blaine thinks and finds his fists curling. It is anger that's flaring up, sudden and hot, a next-to-last resort, because almost everything else, trying so hard to be good enough, has not worked. It makes his muscles tight, it makes him want to uncoil and scream and beg, _why?_

So he doubles down on his body, flattens his palms on his thighs, draws up a breath while Kurt leans down to place a drink in front of him and lets it out with his eyes fixed on the coaster: _I gave him that_. Kurt's eyes had been soft, he'd been pleased. Blaine draws strength from it.

"Stop lying to me."

"What're you talking about?" But there's no trace of _you psycho_ in there; Kurt sits high on his throne and nothing about him is Blaine's.

" _Kurt_ ," he implores, "do you feel anything for me at all?"

"I'm glad you could make it," Kurt says again, leaning back on his chair. "Rachel will be here any minute," he goes on pleasantly, "how are your classes going?"

 _I'm dressed for battle_ , Blaine realizes suddenly. But he got it wrong—he should have shaken off everything that could endear him to Kurt. What is the point of wrapping the enemy around yourself?

"You know my classes are going fine." School, he knows, has never been better. "Everything is fine." Everything is great, actually, now that he has a chance to think about it. "Except _you_."

"I don't know what you want me to tell you, Blaine," Kurt takes a sip from his own cup of tea, "I'm glad you could make it."

The knot forming in his throat makes Blaine jump up. "You have to be kidding me. Who is this guy? Stop it!" The worst part is, he knows, this is the inevitable end to everything. Still—" _Stop_!"

But only the empty hallway extends in front of him.

Blaine flinches when a hand claps him on the back.

" _The Miser_ , right? You're gonna nail it, man." He can't even parse the words until the guy is well on his way, giving him thumbs up without even looking back.

It takes a few more seconds before Blaine stops feeling shaky on his feet; he's almost afraid to look at his phone again.

 _09:04_. He's late.

#

Blaine's not been in the Round Room since his freshman debut in front of Madame Tibideaux three weeks ago. No student was cut from his class that day which made him feel lighter than he had since orientation week started, at least until his mom said, teasing, "well, it looks like you have competition."

 _Nothing Blaine Anderson can't handle_ , he read off his phone later that night, curled up on his side with the covers up to his chin and his back to his roommate's immaculate side of the room. It made him draw the covers up a little higher.

He chose something slow back then, something classic, hopeful but couched like a plea. The stage had never failed him but, right then, singing in the Round Room to Madame Tibideaux's impassive face, it had nevertheless felt like newfound clarity. Like a jolt of power, a whisper of _yes, if you've come to visit the sea, it's only right you should try drowning_.

Today he's been allowed thirty minutes before the scheduled rehearsal for _Anyone Can Whistle_. Every seat is empty, the door is closed, and Blaine spends his first five minutes walking the space. He feels to see how far an improvisation can go. He spins on one foot once, twice, three times, eyes firm on the door, and thinks, _it's not the steps_. There's always room for improvement, but, he stomps his feet in quick succession and reaches out, it's not his technique either. It can't be his teachers, who mostly pass him over but seem to be able to inspire just fine about everybody else.

So, it's him.

Back in Lima, everything was simpler. He knew what he wanted, and what to do, and how to get it. He had, like, a checklist, of the things he needed to get done before New York. Place at Regionals. Deliver a rousing valedictorian speech. Square his shoulders and knock on Sebastian's door. Now it's like he's lost at sea. He doesn't want to but he feels like he's losing the days. They fall like dominoes and all he does is keep spinning in place.

Ten minutes to go and he stops to take a deep breath.

It has to be daring, this song. It has to be a challenge. He doesn't get a second debut but, for a moment, something was filled inside of him, and if it gets close again he wants to do more than just bask in it, he wants to take hold. _Can I have a little more light, please?_

It turns out he can.

When he starts the music propels him forward, he dons on the story like a second skin. He sings out to an imagined audience. Except, as it turns out, he doesn't have to imagine, because when he opens his eyes, mid-note, mid stage smile, he knows he's not alone.

It feels like being led through a spiral staircase, this force that pushes him one way or the other, trying to match his steps. When his voice dies down in surprise he's left unbalanced and alone, but it's like being bowed to, it's like being invited to start over again. They dance and the push is a breeze and his hair is ruffled when they are done.

The— _ghost?_ It dissolves downwards to the floor and, in its place, there's a card. So he crouches down, picks it up and, drawn, reads, barely a whisper, "Windy."

The world comes alive.

#

He rushes in to dance class with his heart beating wildly and the unsettling feeling that he's done something wrong. He doesn't even have it in him to return the smile Hot Daniel flashes in his direction when he takes the spot next to Blaine at the barre. By the time class is done, he's been called out for being too stiff, screwing up the choreography, and distracting his fellow students with his stunning representation of the abomination incompetence and an absolute lack of coordination would produce in their three-way with a badly-oiled robot.

Blaine drinks small sips of water and tries to breathe. The Windy is carefully tucked in the inside pocket of his bag. He's checked every break but that hasn't stopped him from wanting to do it again and again and again. The most the visions have ever taken away from him is time. This—

"You'll do better tomorrow, Blaine." He jerks up in surprise, very smooth, and it's, _oh_ , Daniel. "She was pretty mean there, huh?"

"Um, well, you know," Blaine laughs awkwardly. "She's not wrong. I was distracted."

Daniel's laugh is not awkward at all. "Don't worry too much, Blaine," and he's still smiling when he turns to go, gripping Blaine's shoulder tight once and then letting go, "it's not like you if you're not happy."

#

He thinks about texting Sebastian: _I think there are ghosts haunting NYADA._ On second thought, maybe that's something the Dean should be looking at, _I was practicing but then I think I caused a tornado and like a dozen ghosts were whisked away._ Or not, he thinks guiltily, probably best not to mention any wrongdoing on his part. Then again, maybe it's not ghosts at all. It could be the timespace continuum collapsing, or parallel universes colliding, or— or he's having some sort of stress-induced break with reality. He should be ranking these things on a scale of probability but he's a little afraid of the results.

And then there's The Windy.

He slides his fingers down the front of the card. What he really wants to do is see if he can do it again. And he's sure he did it, he'd called it forth and the gust of wind had started from the card and spiraled with him at the center. When he was finally able to open his eyes, he only caught a little glance, but it looked like there were a lot of them, some kind of beings that vanished into thin air faster than he could commit the details to memory, and at center of each of them, a card.

Trent would be much more open than Sebastian to the ghost theory. Probably. They'd never really discussed it. But Trent would also worry, and what's the point? His mom would tell him to add it to the things he's already tracking. So it would go: one, visions about feeling betrayed by a gorgeous man named Kurt; two, summoning ghosts from parallel dimensions. She'd probably also tell him to go to sleep already: _there's no point in giving people more ammunition by looking the wrong side of tired_.

So he doesn't do anything, just places the card carefully back inside his bag and sets the alarm in his phone fifteen minutes earlier. Just in case he needs some extra time to will himself out of bed in the morning.

#

He goes to an arts school, impromptu performances are like their bread and butter. And yet.

He was running late. He did need the fifteen minutes to convince himself to get up, and when he was finally upright and moving, he found his carefully chosen and folded clothes strewn on the floor. The Windy was lying immobile on his desk, obviously faking innocence. So that was a new thing to figure out. And, of course, today of all days, the dorms' water supply was broken and all he could get out of both shower and tap were short bursts of cold water.

A few people were clustered outside the dance studio but Blaine didn't let it deter him until he walked inside and was forced to stop short. The lights were dimmed and it disoriented him enough that he couldn't tell where the laugh came from until she was right in front of him, standing on the table, feet shoulder-width apart.

"Who is she?"

"I don't even think she goes here."

It's too dark to pinpoint the source of the music but it's clear none of his classmates playing backup dancers are thinking about that. She dances like her body is a tightly wound string and she knows exactly how much tension to release to represent in the flesh every beat of the song. Daniel runs his hand down her thigh and Blaine has to avert his eyes, but she pushes him away with a smirk. She leads with effortlessness that would make Blaine want to join her if he weren't thinking, desperately, _three:_ she crouches down to his line of sight and warns him, _you're one of us, you're coming with me_.

#

Her name is Brittany and she's angry with Blaine.

She got as far as, "the name's Brittany. I'm the current Guardian of The Book, and I've come for the cards you stole," before Miss July came sweeping into the studio. Brittany pointed her finger right at Blaine's chest, "this is your fault," but she let him go: "meet me in an hour, and don't even think about not showing up. I know where you live, card thief."

She tells him, "your lollipop-shaped hair is giving me cravings," so Blaine buys her a raspberry cheesecake Frappuccino. It's a peace offering and she nods approvingly, "Santana says it's only right that I should receive gifts for my _arduous work_."

"Who's Santana?"

"My wife."

He's only speechless for a second and only at the newness of it. It makes his heart beat a little faster, it's so oddly thrilling. They started off the wrong foot, he thinks. She hopped off the table she'd used so effortlessly as a stage and walked right towards him, and—

"You threatened me," he accuses, still stung.

"When did I do that?"

"You said," his voice goes higher against his will, " _prepare to suffer_."

"That's just the truth."

He doesn't let the matter-of-fact way she says it make him squirm, "I'm sorry about your cards."

"They are not _my_ cards."

"Then whose are they?"

"My employer wishes to remain confidential."

Blaine frowns, frustrated, "what does that mean?"

She only pauses for a second. "Don't try to confuse me, card thief. I'm asking the questions here." She crosses her arms. "Now, who sent you?"

"Nobody! It was an accident. And my name is Blaine!"

"Okay, look," Brittany digs into her bag and comes up triumphantly with a book. _The Book_ , Blaine presumes. It's red and gold and utterly unremarkable; it's not until Brittany opens it that Blaine gets it—it's not a book, really, it doesn't have pages, it's hollow, more of a box in the shape of a book, and inside there's a rectangular compartment where a deck of cards the size of The Windy could fit in comfortably. "Seems familiar? Looking out for the cards in this book so nothing bad happens is my job. So give them back."

"I only have one," he confesses finally. Brittany gives him an unimpressed look so he takes out the card, hesitating only a bit before he hands it to her.

"What about the rest?"

"Well, I read—," he locks his eyes on the card in her hand, " _Windy_." He swears it flutters in her grip so he pushes on, emboldened, "there was a gust of wind and these ghosts—" he waves his hand around to encompass everything they could have been, "they all flew away."

Brittany's eyes are narrowed. "Blaine."

"Yes?"

" _Truth time_." The card rises from her palm, floating vertically with the face towards Blaine. The shape over the words _The Windy_ has never been as clear as right then, thin curved lines rising to the shape of a humanoid being, eyes glowing. "The cards are magical. Each card is alive, and possesses incredible powers, but they like acting on their own, and normal forces are no match for them. They got sent to sleep and were sealed by their owner, and I was hired to guard them. But the seal has been broken, and that can cause a _dis-aster_."

"Like the end of the world?"

"No."

"Then what—"

"Anyway," Brittany pushes on, "we have to get them back. So you're coming with me."

"Why me?"

"You're the one who touched what didn't belong to you and woke them up! The Windy would have never organized a party without you using that spell."

"But wasn't it your job to keep them properly sealed away?"

"They _were_ properly sealed away, Blaine Card Thief. You stuck your nose where it didn't belong. And now I've lost some of my powers until they are sealed away again. It's in my contract and it _sucks_."

"Can't you just tell your employer what happened?"

"Look, it's better if nobody finds out, okay? Business is all about reputation and this doesn't make me look that good."

"Brittany, I don't think—"

"The fact that you could wake up The Windy means you have at least some magical powers," she dismisses. "So Blaine, stand up."

He's doing it before he can question it. They are standing in front of the June Dalloway building but nobody is paying them any attention. Brittany extends her palm towards him. The wind picks up. The world around them seems to fade out when the glow appears, like its brightness is obscuring any other source of light around. But it doesn't last long; the pool of light dissolves into a perfect circle around Brittany's feet, a circle with a many-point-star, the sun at the center and a half-moon right at the top.

When Blaine looks back up, there's a golden key shaped like a bird's head spinning over her palm, " _Key of the Seal_." It stops, glowing as if it's answering to a call. "There is someone wishing for a contract with you. His name is Blaine. _Grant him the power_. Release!" In the shape of the pink staff it grows into, it's easier to appreciate the details: the red gems that serve as the bird's eyes, the curved red beak and the pair of tiny wings at the back of its head. "Blaine, wake up, grab the wand!"

He startles into the movement, but the staff is solid under his palm for only a second before it's changing its shape back into a tiny key. His heart is beating fast. He looks up to Brittany and he has a thousand questions, _is this real?_ But the only thing that leaves his mouth is, "is this safe?"

She doesn't seem to hear him. "Now we celebrate," she announces instead, handing over The Windy.

"Celebrate what?"

"You, silly," Brittany says, linking their arms, "the birth of Card Captor Blaine."


	2. Chapter 2

It's been a while since he's been Cooper's little brother. These days Blaine mostly knows about Cooper from Facebook and Twitter and his absurdly popular Instagram account.

Or, at least, he thinks, this _was_ true. But now—now they are standing close together. Cooper is holding Blaine in place by the back of his neck. "This is my brother Blaine," he's saying, and Blaine can't help but think, spitefully, confused, _Cooper who?_ "He's very talented," Cooper goes on, and, okay, that's— _this is definitely not Cooper_.

Is not-Cooper actually talking to anybody? There's no one around, nobody real at least, just Blaine and this— _fantasy._

He feels dizzy, and he feels so heavy, like the whole ocean has taken residence on his body. He can't think. He's—

He's awake.

He has to concentrate for a few seconds but, at last, the world is familiar. He's lying face up on his bed, his legs hanging off the side. When he turns his head to check, right in front of him is Sam, the last survivor of Blaine's bran cookie box is balanced on his thigh, and he's playing LoL on Blaine's laptop. On Blaine's bed. Artie seems to have gotten comfortable at his desk. Blaine is pretty sure he has a fantasy that starts somewhat like this. So he tries to sit up, dazed, "have you moved in here?"

"No way. There's a ghost in here. And I don't mean your roommate."

"There's not a ghost in here." _Anymore._ Blaine's pretty sure the reason The Windy spent a few nights making a mess of his room is that it was trying to fight something, and it would have gone on doing it if Brittany hadn't finally called him out on it: "It's because you haven't written your name on the card yet. If you don't, you won't bind its powers to you. If The Windy hasn't done worse, it's because it's naturally gentle and kind. Not all of them will be." So that was that.

"Um, your shower does not have hot water. And before you crashed on us, you were telling us about the Bruce Lee chick. Not to mention, on my way here, I heard someone yelling some performance was so bad, all the sprinklers in the room turned on by themselves just to make everyone shut up. All that evidence? Points to ghost. I've seen _Dark Water_."

"A classic," Artie nods approvingly.

It's not dark water, but things are not normal either, Sam's right. There have been too many complaints from students about the water taps malfunctioning, the garden sprinklers being too strong, and, well, there was that one flooding. Blaine only heard it secondhand from a girl in his group singing class: "They say she was reciting Bruce Lee's monologue from _Bruce Lee: The Lost Interview_ when the place flooded. I mean, on one hand: super method and she got full points, but, you know, she might get billed for that stunt and now the place is closed."

Now the cast of _Anyone Can Whistle_ had been attacked while performing The Miracle Song. One could say there was a theme going on.

"It's probably a Card," Blaine admits finally.

"For real?"

"What? You mean, like Cthulhu?"

"Like The Create, yes."

That one was the whole reason Blaine's room was now regularly being invaded by Sam and Artie. Blaine had gotten the call from Brittany in the middle of the night, jolted awake when he'd heard, "Card Captor Blaine, it's time!" She'd insisted he come quickly, " _Dis_ -aster, Blaine!" So he'd ended up in Long Island City in his pea coat and pajamas at 3 o'clock in the morning, waiting for Brittany to let him into her building.

That night he'd met Santana, too, the wife, who'd gotten one look at him and blurted out, annoyed, "what, you couldn't swing Frodo, Brit?" But it was late, and Blaine could let crankiness slide.

"We trapped them in the bedroom," Brittany informed him patiently, "if it's what I think it is I'll get some of my power back when you seal it, so go on, Blaine!" It was the first time Blaine actually got to use the key Brittany had given him and he'd gasped at the way it'd felt so much like that first time in NYADA's Round Room, like the knowledge the universe was so much bigger suddenly made everything stand out sharper.

But it turned out that what they had trapped in their bedroom was— _what_ , "Godzilla?" He'd closed the door again before he'd even thought it through, "I don't understand."

"It's Godzilla vs. Cthulhu, genius," said Santana with a roll of her eyes, "Some sort of human-sized version with crazy swirling eyes, anyway."

"Okay?"

The culprit, as it were, turned out to be Sam, their second floor neighbor, who'd just been trying his hand at a little creative writing in the journal his roommate had brought home, to wind down after a long photoshoot. Brittany couldn't find him by herself, up until Blaine had sealed that particular card. It felt like her senses were dulled, she explained, but Blaine and The Windy could find the Card "by resonance", she said.

Artie he met two days after. He'd sent an email asking for a "business meeting" and Blaine had been intrigued enough to go. It turned out that of all the people that could have been peeping out their windows that fateful night, it had been filmmaker (in-training) Artie who'd used his phone to film Blaine in all his Card Captor glory from the building across the street. Blaine saw himself back in Brittany and Santana's after neutralizing the journal by taking away its writer and sealing the card in the presence of its dwindling manifestations. It made for a pretty video.

"What were you even doing there?"

"I had a date," he said matter-of-factly.

Artie wanted to film Blaine again, "the whole thing, really. While I have complete trust in my artistic vision, my professors have been telling me that my work lately has been, shall we say, a little derivative. This is fresh, exciting. Plus, you can't get better special effects than real magic."

So Artie gets his project, Blaine gets to put it in his résumé _and_ he gets to make sure none of it is a hallucination. It's win-win, really.

Now is the opportunity to make it happen. "I'm going to seal it tonight."

"Great, tell me the time and place, wouldn't miss it," says Sam.

Blaine can't help his smile.

#

It's not even late. Ten minutes past nine, but he's somewhere he's not supposed to be so he's wearing a half mask anyway. It's black because they are breaking in. In a manner of speaking.

Sam looks disappointed, "that's a good idea. You should have texted me," and it makes Blaine blush, entirely against his will, so yes, it _was_ a good idea.

Artie nods approvingly, "yes, I can see it. Like an Alan Moore superhero."

Brittany just looks at him blankly for a few seconds, "your sweetly scented raspberry hair gel gives you away anyway," which is not a complaint so they are all good.

Blaine didn't plan it but he's excited. He's Card Captor Blaine, he has a team, and they are saving the world. Well, New York City. Mostly NYADA. But it _matters_.

The cast of _Anyone Can Whistle_ was attacked in one of the dance studios so they head there first. It's not that there aren't people around but Brittany seems to have some sort of reality warping power because she leads and no one gives them a second glance.

There's not a single soul when they get to the right floor. That is, until music comes floating, faint, down the hall. A welcome. And then a voice: _shed no tears for me, there'll be rain enough today_. The air feels perturbed, somehow.

"Blaine—"

"Yes," so that's a free Card, it feels like getting wired up for a fight. "It's moving."

 _I'm not a stranger to the rain_ , and then, a scream.

Blaine runs.

When he slides the doors open, there's a column of water unfurling towards the ceiling, like a genie conjuring itself out of thin air. Blaine has no time: there's the same scream, female, and with it Blaine launches himself at the guy standing before the Card. They topple down onto the floor just as it charges, a cannon of water right into the wall that soaks the back of Blaine's cardigan and leaving him gasping for air. Unconsciously, he tightens his grip a little on the shirt underneath his fingers but when he looks down, the air rushes right out of his lungs faster than he can get it back in. Because, it's _Kurt_ , eyes wide and mouth open.

Before Blaine can collect his bearings, Kurt gasps, "look out!" and then he's being pulled towards Kurt's - broad – chest, and Kurt's rolling them over and pressing him down onto the floor. It's so _warm_. There's the sound of sizzling and, over Kurt's shoulder, Blaine could swear he sees steam rise up. Kurt turns his head over his shoulder, yells, "Rachel, run!"

The Card disappears into a corner of the ceiling. Kurt jumps up and Blaine follows, "we have to go, too!" But Kurt hesitates so Blaine takes his hand and pulls, "it'll keep attacking if we stay!" They make it two steps before the Card unfurls again. Blaine thinks, _screw it_ , and pulls at the chain at his neck.

But Kurt is one step ahead, he twirls a baton between his fingers and meets the Card directly, a wall of steam rises between them and Blaine hears—no, feels, a _snarl_ , it's not even a face, it's like it's trying and failing to be, an ugly face in pain, and this time it's Blaine who yells, "no, wait, Kurt, don't hurt it!"

"What are you talking about?" But to his credit, Kurt immediately whirls to drop his weapon to the floor, the flow of water following him only for half a turn before it rushes out the door.

"Blaine!" That's Sam, but faster than him is the girl who screamed, "Kurt! Are you okay?"

Her name is Rachel Berry, Blaine quickly finds out, the singer, and _his_ name is Kurt Hummel—Blaine can't take his eyes off him, _do you feel anything for me at all?_ But Kurt just looks determined, he nods at Sam's explanation like it makes any sense, "it's like Yu-Gi-Oh! except they are out of control, Blaine here is the Card Captor, so I guess it's more like Pokémon right now, gotta catch them all and all that." Blaine smiles because he doesn't know what else to do.

"Is that why you felt like it was hurt? Your magic is linked," and Kurt's frown is so unlike the placidly blank expression Blaine's used to that it makes him, absurdly, _happy_ , like that moment when the lights turn on for him onstage, "they're testing you."

"I didn't tell you that. That's suspicious."

Kurt's frown actually smooths over at Brittany's accusation, "what else can it be? It's not like I haven't seen a bound bit of magic that acts like it's been given sentience before. They can't exist on their own and Card Captor Guy Williams over there has control over the key that binds and leads them."

 _My name is Blaine_ , it stings a little, he can't stop thinking, _do you feel anything for me at all?_ So instead he says, "You got all that from Sam's explanation?"

"I have experience." But he doesn't elaborate. 

Sam is nodding anyway, impressed, "so this is a witch school, right?"

"Okay!" Rachel claps her hands together, "don't get me wrong, this is all very illuminating, but some sort of water demon just attacked us so maybe we should get back to that."

"She's right, I've barely gotten a glimpse of this thing, Blaine, and the only footage I have of you are the establishing shots back at the elevator. This project is not gonna work if I don't actually get anything to work with."

Sam frowns, "didn't it run away? How did you manage that?"

"Kurt did that," admits Blaine.

"But it won't work to capture it," Kurt says, "You have to cage it somehow."

Rachel nods, "You have other Cards, right, Blaine?"

He was going to send The Windy out, back in the studio. Would it win? The Windy was enough to trap the Create Card, but that one didn't put up much of a fight, really, that was mostly Cthulhu. And the Create Card was different, a book, solid, something that wouldn't slip through his fingers.

"I don't think the others are strong enough," says Brittany, "the Card is probably The Watery, The Windy won't be able to take it down."

"Does it _work_ like water?" Artie is looking thoughtfully down at his camera, "can we freeze it?"

 _Be formless. Shapeless. Like water._ That's the problem. So make it solid.

"So we'll draw it out—"

"I can do that!"

"Rachel, no," says Kurt, "I can be bait."

"Don't be ridiculous, he's filming," says Rachel, smiling wide.

"It's a documentary," Artie offers.

"Okay!" Blaine claps his hands together; it seemed to work for Rachel. "Let's catch this thing."

#

It's cold outside and he's wet, but there's nothing in the world that would make him stop running. It seems The Watery is a quick learner, obviously charging head first was not quite cutting it, so now it is attacking from a distance, sharp slices of ice that he's having trouble dodging. _Ironic_.

He only has to make it past the kitchen and right into an open freezer. Hopefully. If Kurt and Artie managed their part without trouble, that is. Brittany already did pretty well with the girl back at the door and Rachel was extremely brave, standing right at the bottom of the stairs before the glass doors and drawing The Watery out with her singing. It came splashing in straight for her but Blaine was ready, magic circle already drawn and The Windy only a word away. Brittany was right, The Watery had overpowered his spell easily, but the trap was set and when Blaine ran out the doors, the Card followed.

Now he finally rounds the last corner, stumbling a little from another attack. The door up ahead is open so he dashes in quickly, The Watery right at his heels. It unfurls upwards at being walled in, ready to charge forward, but Blaine has his staff ready, The Windy materializing barely a second before The Watery rushes towards them. It won't win but it buys Blaine enough time to run out, Kurt sealing the doors behind him.

He stumbles onto his knees and has to take a second to catch his breath.

"Blaine!" He hears Artie approaching but it's Kurt that gets close, his face drawn in worry.

"I'm okay."

"You're _soaked_."

"Yeah, your hair's getting funny."

"What!" He raises his hands to check, patting the offensive curls down instinctively. "Are you still filming?"

"You haven't sealed the Card yet, have you?" Artie says, pointing the camera right at Blaine and examining the image closely. "Also, you look fine. I can honestly say this camera loves you."

"It goes with the theme," says Kurt, leaning down to take a look at the screen, "You fought a water demon, now you're a hardened warrior, a little worse for wear but still c— _capable_."

Blaine still pats down his vest for good measure but he can't help shaking his head a little at them, pleased.


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you know," says Brittany, standing off to the side, "there are four elemental cards. You have two. This one," and Blaine doesn't quite know what to do, he feels as frozen as the image before him, two forces intertwined against the night sky, the brilliant irregular blue that is The Watery and the unnatural conglomerate of flame-like flashes of energy he's supposed to seal, "this one is an attack card."

It's hard to think, his legs feel too warm, the muscles of his thighs are twitching—the struggle is as much inside of him as it is in front, the strain The Watery feels as real as the tight grip in which he holds his staff. The knowledge seeps into his mind through the bridge the spell creates between them: _if you can, I can_.

But in the end, he can't. The buzzing starts low enough that he can still hear Artie, his voice full of the wonder Blaine would feel if it weren't buried underneath the queasy feeling that he's way in over his head, "let me guess," and as the buzzing continues its slow crescendo, Blaine thinks, _please do_ : "this one is Firey."

He falls.

"Blaine!"

He's on his knees and leaning against Artie's legs; Artie, who has a tight grip on the back of his neck, is saying, "Just keep your head down and breathe slowly."

He tries. He's lost time, he knows because The Watery is back to a card, lying on the ground by his side.

Brittany is standing in front of them. She must hear Blaine shifting behind her but she's standing still. So Blaine follows her gaze to—"Kurt?"

Kurt and what looks like a real sword this time, thin and long and alight with blue wisps of flame. They meet only for a few seconds, Kurt and The Firey, enough to get Blaine attempting to surge up, but not enough for Artie to let go of him, and he's up on his knees, one hand on Artie's knee, when Kurt bears down and sends The Firey towards the ground, only to watch it bounce up, a blackening patch left behind, and curl up into a perfect sphere, bound and crackling, the way the mouth of a volcano might look before the lava spills over. It makes Blaine wonder if it's too much to hope that Brooklyn's Film Academy has no security cameras in their currently unfinished buildings.

Artie's voice is barely a murmur when he says, "I think he's stalking you," just as Kurt yells, "Blaine!" Kurt has to pivot on his step quickly, though, because The Firey is already charging towards him again, "Damn it, aren't you tired already!"

The Create. The Watery. The Windy. He doesn't have a lot of options—

"Did you hit your head on the way down? I said it's an elemental card _and_ an attack one, Blaine. The Windy will lose, it didn't even try to outrun _you_."

"What do I do? He's going to get hurt!"

"I don't know, he seems to be doing pretty well." Artie has his camera trained on Kurt's movements, and, okay, _that,_ that is a little—Blaine can't help running a hand over his hair, just to check. "Can't Kurt seal this one? You know, a little twist, a nemesis to add some flavor—"

"No." Brittany and Blaine say at the same time.

"Look, just do something quickly. I don't have unlimited space on this thing and if it runs out all I'll have to film with is my phone. Also, Brittany, I think your hand is turning purple."

"What? _Why_?"

"She stopped The Firey's attack. It was pretty amazing."

"You went down like my cat did that time we went skydiving, those things keep catching me by surprise," she shrugs but Blaine can tell she's at least a little mad, "I wasn't prepared."

 _Okay._ Okay. Deep breath. So he's off kilter, that's not new, it's like coming out of a vision. He is—okay. He feels fine, this is not a good time to take out a mirror, but it's not like he hit his head, nothing hurts, so he probably looks fine, too. It's only that Brittany's hurt, that's what's not okay, and Artie and Kurt, they could get hurt, too, that's super not okay. Artie, at least, doesn't seem to be turning out to be some kind of sword-wielding fire mage or a reality-warping magical girl, so he's not supposed to get hurt at all. And Blaine's the Card Captor, making sure of that is his responsibility. So. He doesn't have a lot of options. The Windy might not be a natural fighter but it likes Blaine, it wants to help, and The Watery has a score to settle.

Okay, then.

He holds both cards close. "Please," he tells them, "please lend me your strength. I promise I won't fail you again." They float up from his palm, side by side. He raises the staff up high, magic circle opening up around him. "Take all you need." _If you can, I can_. "Windy! Watery!"

Blaine moves with them, he's ready when The Firey is subdued, struggling but ineffectual. "Return to your true form, Firey Card!"

The Windy and The Watery are back in his hand before The Firey has fully consolidated, and even when it does it seems to hesitate, floating unmoving before Blaine. Maybe he's being paranoid but it feels like what finally breaks their stalemate is Kurt, approaching to stand by Blaine's side. The Firey slides down then, it falls, _with style_ , until it's laying face up on the ground between them. It feels like a test, somehow, a spell he cannot break, but Kurt kneels down after a beat and when he stands back up his eyebrows are drawn up in amusement as he offers the Card to Blaine, "it's kind of a brat, isn't it?"

#

The first thing Blaine learnt about the visions is that they can get him hurt. It's not true they are only dreams, like his mom said at first, back when they'd amounted to nightmares of a dozen boys in red-striped blue blazer pointing right at him, singing to him in perfect harmonies: _leave my door open just a crack (please take me away from here)_.

Once he'd made a slow walk from the kitchen back to his room, and soon he'd been walking a hall, and there had been a song at his lips, _I'm a rockstar_ , until he'd twirled on one foot and stumbled right into his bedroom door. The only reason the resulting bump didn't bother him at all was the fact that painkillers were already sloshing around in his system.

He doesn't remember a lot of things but numbness and anger and bouts of crying but he still thinks, _I was happy_. That was something not even Cooper had been able to take from him, crying and laughing to music, feeling every bit of himself reach equilibrium when his fingers touched the piano keys, not like the wrong emotion was hurling him to the ground.

The problem is not that he can't tell the visions from dreams, it's that he can't tell them from reality, not when he's in them, anyway, and he carries back from them the ghost of his feelings. He could become addicted, he thought once, if he could control it, the high of being able to feel so bright, do so much. But he couldn't, he still can't.

He went to Dalton and joined The Warblers instead.

#

At Blaine's insistence, Artie agrees to give him a copy of all of the night's footage. He's not happy about it but Blaine obviously looks pathetic enough that he finally relents.

As soon as he's back inside his room, Blaine writes his name very carefully on The Firey.

Artie emails him links to download everything an hour later. It's good that happens because otherwise he might have spent what remained of the night staring at the ceiling.

He plays the video on his computer twice. Twice he sees himself turn pale and start wobbling; by the time he'd started to fall, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, they'd been at either side of him, Brittany and Artie, and The Watery had vanished from the screen. The angle of Artie's camera on his lap lets him see, up close, Brittany catching him and letting him fold down to his knees. The next second she'd been up, in front of them, her coat flaring back towards the camera. The sudden glow had to be The Firey's attack, coming straight at them, straight at Brittany, but it seemed to miss them entirely, at least until a sudden movement made him realize she'd had her arm drawn out in front of her, and she was drawing it back because— because it _hurt_ , probably. Artie yelled, "Brittany!" But she had not moved from her place, firm even as The Firey prepared to attack again.

That's when Kurt had come in. It isn't easy to see but on his second viewing Blaine spots him coming from behind The Firey, a spell on his lips that made the Card make half a turn and rush towards him. He'd made a sweeping motion to the side with his right arm and the sword had suddenly been in his hand, but it hadn't started glowing blue until he'd played with it a little, twirling it and swinging at the air right and left.

The Firey had waited, that's what keeps Blaine up the rest of the night.

#

"I think," Sam says suddenly, tipping a little bit dangerously forward on the chair he's straddling, "You should try a costume."

Blaine closes his eyes, trying not to breathe in too hard. Sam doesn't seem to have noticed but Blaine just spent the last five minutes looking right at his mouth. He's flushed with the knowledge, feels guiltier because he's sitting on Sam's bed. He sounds more breathless than he wants to when he says, "Will that work?"

"It works for every superhero, doesn't it?" And Blaine's made that particular connection, Artie has, but hearing Sam say it makes him look away unconsciously anyway, pleased. It would be nice, too, to attach something to Card Captor Blaine that has not been handed over by somebody else. "Should it be pink so it goes with your magic wand?"

"I'd rather not." He's thinking more like black, hidden. It's a secret mission after all. Technically. Even if Artie is filming it and, like, three different people that have zero to do with any of it know about it, including Sam. "Let's shelve this conversation for later."

"Okay, what's next?"

Blaine checks the list on his phone. He hadn't meant it as a list of conversation topics but Sam had accidentally seen it when he leaned over to reach for the remote. Talking them over isn't giving him that many answers but it's still helpful in its own way. At the very least Sam hasn't taken his eyes off Blaine for twenty minutes already, it makes Blaine feel both happy and a little bit pathetic.

"Um, we aren't done with The Firey."

"Just let that go, dude. It's one card and you haven't tried it in a real situation yet, it's probably just making you squirm now because it can. When push comes to shove, your name is on it."

"I need all of them to listen to me, Sam." Is Card Captor Blaine anything at all if the cards don't listen? The Firey doesn't want him, that's the truth. It wants Kurt. If Kurt hadn't handed it over—

"You think Kurt did something to it?"

Kurt _impressed_ it, that's what he did. "I don't know."

"You think he can't be trusted?"

Blaine curls up a little, frustrated. " _I don't know_."

"Okay, obviously this is the wrong subject. I say next."

Next is Kurt. Blaine rubs at his eyes instead, "how about a break?"

"Lunch?"

"I can cook."

"Do you _want_ to?"

Maybe, but he says, "Pizza?"

Sam starts up a game while they wait for the food when the music in his playlist changes, incongruently, to a song about weaves and soft drinks and the deplorable state of the world.

"Mercedes Jones," says Sam, "my mom bought this album from the artist herself off the street. That was a while ago. She's getting famous now, I follow her on Twitter. She's awesome."

"Her voice is amazing."

"Yeah, and she sings about normal things, you know? I don't know that much about weaves or whatever, but I like that it matters to her. It makes me think of home."

"Do you miss it?"

"I miss my family but it's not really that, we Skype."

Blaine doesn't miss Lima, he misses the way he felt there sometimes, some of the ways he hasn't managed to feel in New York yet. But in New York there's Sam, there's Brittany and Artie, there's Card Captor Blaine.

"Okay," Sam says suddenly, "I got it."

"Sam, we just lost."

"Yeah, we had a loser team. It doesn't matter. What I mean is, you shouldn't go Card Captor-ing without me. I'll cover your back, okay? I'll keep my eye on Kurt. I like him but he could be some sort of dark mage. Good call on that."

"I don't think he's a dark mage."

"You never know with people, we just had our asses kicked because our team was just us and a bunch of trolls. It's better to be prepared." Sam deliberately leans closer to bump their shoulders together. "So?"

"Yes," says Blaine, "I'll call you."

#

"Kurt's right, the Cards are testing you," Brittany informs him on Monday, swallowing the last of her cronut. "They like making trouble but they also know they can't be free forever. You have to prove yourself to them. Or else." 

" _Dis_ -aster, I remember." He's feeling a bit queasy. He blames it on the cronuts, they were supposed to be sharing two and two but Brittany had graciously let him stuff his face with a third.

"You have three elemental cards already, they should be able to overpower everything else," she goes on, "which is great for anything else that needs to be overpowered. It might even help with the others."

"Others?"

"The _special_ ones."

"What do those do?"

"Annoy everyone, mostly."

Blaine frowns, unconvinced, "You're saying I shouldn't worry."

"No, I'm not saying that." Brittany frowns back. "I'm saying, you impressed _everyone_ this weekend, despite all the initial swooning. The next card that tries to kill us, I'll trust you _fully_ instead of only to your face. Okay?"

Blaine is saved from having to answer that when the door slams open and a girl rushes in, flustered, "oh my god, is it time yet?"

"I think you still have a few months to go."

"It's one thirty-seven," Blaine cuts in quickly and, because she seems to need it, adds, "the schedule on the door says there's supposed to be a drama class here at two."

"Oh, thank god, I fell asleep and I was dreaming I nailed this ridiculous surrealist assignment but as soon as I heard I got full marks I woke up from the sheer shock. I was so confused I just ran here," and then, maybe because Blaine is nodding along, "it's just, the little quad by the library is so comfortable, there's this awesome tree." Pause. "And I've never had an ant crawl on me there."

Brittany leans in towards him. "We should go check it out, Blaine. Lord Tubbington loves sleeping, hates ants. I've been wanting to bring him here, do a thorough check of this place now that he's finally done with his Catfish addiction."

"Maybe I could show you sometime, then we could go get some coffee."

"Sorry, married," Brittany hands Blaine his bag so he opens the door for her, "if you need something to distract from your wishy-washy acting abilities, though, I have a guy and she's a girl so maybe you'll like her."

#

"Blaine!"

It's entirely possible Kurt is stalking him. Or Blaine is, maybe, he's still unsure, considering his current situation. Because Kurt— Blaine has never noticed him before but he quickly learns that it's probably his own fault.

"He's one of Madame Tibideaux's favorites," tells him James, who'd also arrived for their vocal freshman seminar forty-five minutes early and promptly taken a seat next to Blaine on the floor.

"Yeah, I heard he was asked to perform at the Winter Showcase _before_ he was actually a student here." That's a little tidbit he learned from his warm-up partner in dance class earlier today. He still has no idea how Kurt managed that.

They both go silent for a moment to contemplate. The studio door in front of them is open and the students are paired off with prop staffs. Kurt is right in their line of vision and Blaine thinks he's holding back. He's seen Kurt, the way he'd wielded the staff the first time against The Watery, he'd been as trained and sharp as the sword he used to hold back The Firey.

Kurt's still sharp, his movements are confident and precise, but they are different now that it's not a real fight, smaller, gentler, slower now that they are choreographed. And it dawns on Blaine that he's not showing off, not like with The Firey.

James shifts back against the wall, "so he's a friend of yours?"

That's what had sparked their conversation, Kurt opening the door in sweatpants and a black wife-beater, wiping his face with a towel and breaking into a surprised smile, "Blaine!" He'd nodded at James politely. James liked that.

"He's—I just met him." Kurt does a sudden turn that doesn't look choreographed, it makes his partner's staff catch him on the shoulder but stops him from toppling over. The teacher is calling out, "watch your step!" when Blaine finally tears his eyes away.

James raises his eyebrows, "well?" It feels funny, the way he's so casual with it, Blaine isn't even sure he's gay, too, he might just be bored. At Dalton no one had ever asked about the boys Blaine might or might not have been interested in. Once Blaine had brought up to Trent the idea of having The Warblers help him serenade a guy he'd had coffee with twice, but Trent had instantly balked, citing so many passages about The Warblers' rich history from their official handbook that condemned such public displays that Blaine had felt a little ashamed he hadn't read the document in question with that much attention to detail.

There was always Sebastian, but Sebastian had only made him feel caged, somehow, like matching his careless comments with sincerity would only result in feeling vaguely ashamed. Blaine already spent too much time having to sort out which feelings made sense and which didn't and it was something he preferred doing away from the prying eyes of anyone else, bouncing them off Sebastian was only likely to end in them getting even more tangled up and then casually dismissed.

"I don't know him well," he tells James and even though it's true, it _is_ , it feels like a lie. He knows Kurt is the kind of magical he's working hard to be, he knows Kurt's kind enough to help him, whether he was following Blaine in the first place or coincidentally close enough to sense what was going on, he knows Kurt always seems happy to see him whenever they pass each other at NYADA despite the fact that Kurt has never suggested meeting someplace else, asked for Blaine's phone number or even sent a friend request on Facebook. He knows it's possible someone could become close enough to Kurt to feel like the world is incomplete if Kurt is not looking their way. He knows there's a path that leads him to be that someone.

James shrugs, "fair enough." He pauses for a beat. "Do you know the girl who's always with him?"

"Rachel?"

James' eyes light up.

Oh.

He ends up promising James he'll try to see if he can introduce him to Rachel. James' grin reminds him of Sam's. He gives Blaine thumbs up when the professor tells them their mid-term exam will actually be a mid-term recital on Tuesday, attended by Madame Tibideaux herself, who is very eager to see how the freshman class is doing, and they are allowed to invite friends and family.

So for the first time he goes looking for Kurt.

#

Kurt finds him instead.

Blaine is in line for coffee and maybe a cookie when Kurt slides up next to him, "oh, hey, Blaine," and he sounds pleased, just as the barista says, "next." Kurt makes a go-ahead gesture with his arm.

"I'll have a medium drip, please, and one of those red velvet cookies," he hesitates only a second, "and what will you have, Kurt? My treat."

Kurt blinks, surprised. "Don't be ridiculous, you don't have to—"

"For all the help you've given me. Come on, I should be buying you coffee every day for the next year."

Kurt's smile is a little flustered. "Okay, then. Thank you."

They share the cookie. Kurt cuts it in two precise halves and holds his palm over them for a few seconds to warm them up.

"Wow, neat trick."

"Well, it can't all be throwing down and scorching the earth, can it?"

"I guess not." Blaine doesn't really know what it _can_ be, actually. He's never been able to control the visions at all, they are just something that happen to him sometimes. Even though he sometimes uses what he can learn off them, it still feels like all they do is confuse most things. Like right now. He wants to tell Kurt that, but he's not supposed to talk about the visions, so instead he says, "Have you always been able to control them? Your powers?"

"God no. They manifested when I was a kid, though, so I've had a lot of time to learn. The first time I lost control was about a month after my mom died. I was anxious, I think, because my dad had a cold. I couldn't tell him that, I was eight. So instead I was being a brat about the way he was preparing the pancakes. I got too rowdy, I think. He yelled, I screamed back. The curtains caught on fire." Kurt says it fondly, like making a mistake is a good thing.

"Did something... cause them?"

"I don't think something _caused_ them, I didn't make a deal or a contract or anything. I inherited them, I guess." Kurt runs his finger around the rim of his cup. "Did you make a contract with Brittany?"

"I think I made a contract with this key." Blaine lightly touches it where it rests against his chest.

"The Key of the Seal," Kurt says, suddenly solemn, "and you have The Book?"

"Yes, back in my room."

Kurt nods, "good. All of these are powerful artifacts, don't let anyone else keep them."

"Well, when I get all the cards back, I have to give them to Brittany."

"Is that what she said?"

Blaine frowns, confused. "That's what I have to do." Kurt gives him an odd look but doesn't say anything else, so Blaine tries, hesitantly, after a pause, "I don't really understand how it happened. Awakening The Windy, I mean. I didn't mean to cast the spell, that just... happened, but why was the Card awake in the first place?"

"What were you doing?"

"Nothing... singing."

"You know, the fact that The Watery was hiding not far from where you set it free is pretty unusual as well. The Firey made it to Brooklyn. The Watery is also an attack card, and we are on an island, it had the power to travel far fast."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I think you have a lot of magical power and you're prone to using it unknowingly and also that it resonates with certain magical beings, you call and you're answered. Has it really not happened before?" Blaine can't help lowering his eyes. "Well, what were you feeling?"

Sad. Despondent. Angry. Afraid. The ambulance ride had been the worst, he'd been crying and he hadn't been able to do anything but give his name and hand over his phone. It was chipped on one corner, that was the first thing that made him rage, later. By the time his mom arrived at the hospital he'd been on his side, staring blankly at the wall, she says, but no doctor had commented, and all he remembers is watching girls playing lacrosse from a stand filled with boys in Dalton blazers. That happened three months later, he's got it carefully noted in his tracking journal.

He doesn't say, _I felt like I didn't want to be here anymore_. He thinks about The Windy instead, and needing to be seen and wanted, to feel part of something, to have a purpose.

In the end he doesn't answer Kurt at all, just says, "I guess it makes sense."

When it comes to saying goodbye, Kurt touches his elbow lightly. "Can we do this again? Not the coffee necessarily, just... the conversation." He seems a little embarrassed but he doesn't let it stop him, "it's just, I don't know many people who can do this." He waves his hand. "Magic. Not like you."

"I think I barely count as someone who can _do_ magic, to tell you the truth," Kurt gives him that odd look again so Blaine hurries to add, "but I would love to do this again." It's the truth; and it's wrong to punish Kurt for something he hasn't done, for something that is Blaine's fault.

Kurt smiles brightly. "Great! Let me give you my number."

#

He finally texts Kurt on Saturday: _My vocal freshman seminar is having a mid-term recital, it's not big or anything, but maybe you'd like to come. You could bring Rachel. It's Tuesday, 06.00p.m_. And a smiley face.

Kurt answers almost instantly, _I'd love too, we'll be there_.

#

Sam looks exactly like the kind of man Blaine looks at in the dead of night. It makes him feel ashamed. Sam thinks Card Captor Blaine is cool, he sends Blaine fanfiction with interesting summaries and indulges him when Blaine wants to discuss them, he calls Blaine's voice soothing, "better than my phone's". He's kind.

Sam sits back against the tree trunk and reveals his secrets to Blaine, one by one.

"My dream was to have my junk on a bus. It was surprisingly easy to do. I didn't really have a plan, after that."

"The big city grabbed you?"

"No way. Modelling is great and all, and it's a total Good Samaritan move that I'm sharing all of this with the world, but this place is _terrible_. I get lost in the subway all the time."

"Why are you still here, then?"

Sam shrugs, "I got a good deal, I guess."

Blaine watches him for a moment. They are sitting under the ant-less tree. The afternoon sun casts its light through the leaves and makes shadows on Sam's face. There's stubble on his cheeks and his eyes are as bright as the butterfly perched on the tree by his shoulder. Blaine shifts a little closer.

"What? Do I have something on my face?"

"No, you just... You have a great face."

Sam's expression says he can't disagree. "Thank you."

Blaine wants to kiss him. It suddenly feels possible. Instead, he says, "I can't believe we managed to score this place. The school newspaper named it one of the top ten spots to take a break during mid-terms."

"Well, so far so good."

Blaine's heart is beating faster than it's supposed to, like he just ran a great marathon. Like it's not over yet.

"Hey, Blaine." Kurt is covering the sun. He peers in close. "Are you going to faint again?" It feels like he's laughing.

"Tell the truth, Kurt, are you sabotaging him?"

Kurt shakes his head. "Blaine is going to sing today, have you ever heard Blaine sing?"

"Sure, we jam all the time."

"I'm sure it's going to be wonderful."

But Sam frowns, "I don't think I'm going to make it."

"What? No!"

"Are you taking my seat?"

"Not me."

" _Blaine_!" Sam is standing right in front of him, " _do something_."

It's their strings, that's what's wrong. Blaine looks down at his hands; the thin black tendrils are coming out of his fingertips, but they are too slack, that's why there's no script. He tries to pull Sam's but the tree already has them taut.

" _Blaine_."

Sam extends his arms wide and the branches take hold of him, his arms, his waist, his neck. "Don't let anybody hurt you, okay?"

"No, no, no, please!" He goes for the key hanging from his neck but there's nothing there.

"Blaine!"

He wakes up.

He can't move, it's dark outside and there's a pressure on his chest, it moves away before he can panic but he's still— he's still cradled among the roots of a tree, "what—"

"It was trying to help you, Blaine. Just relax." That's Kurt, and he's worried. The hand he places on Blaine's forehead is warm, and he's looking right at Blaine when he soothes, "he's alright, he's awake, you can pull away now."

The roots draw back slowly and Blaine scrambles to sit up.

"Oh, cool, it worked. Now take care of this, Card Captor." Sam is sitting cross-legged at Blaine's feet, and he's holding up what looks like a bright blue butterfly, perched on the back of his fingers. "Is it called The Sleepy?"

It's called The Dream, it turns out.

"You probably sat on it," figures Sam, "you fell asleep on me. I _think_ the other one was trying to get it off of you. But I didn't know that at first, I tried to fight it and it held me back. Then Kurt showed up and told me to stop struggling, it totally worked. You woke up and it handed me the butterfly."

Kurt shakes his head at Sam, " _you_ woke him up, you called and he answered."

'The other one' is The Wood and it takes only Blaine standing in front of the tree for the Card to manifest out of it and take its true form. Blaine spends all of two seconds dusting off his pants before he remembers—the recital. His stomach drops at the realization, it's dark around them—he fumbles with his phone: _07:17_ —so it's already started and the dorms and the Round Room are at opposite sides of the school.

Kurt steers him to the bathroom but looking at himself in the mirror doesn't make him feel better. He spent ages on this outfit, carefully chose what he wanted to project and what he needed to hide, and now... His pants are dark enough to be salvageable but his shirt used to be white, his jacket has a stain that needs to be dry cleaned and his bowtie is torn. His hair's a mess, too, sweaty and springing out of the careful hold of his liberally applied hair gel.

"I can't go on like this!"

"No," says Kurt, looking him over, "I wouldn't recommend it. But your dorm—"

"Is on the other side of the school!" Blaine forces himself to lower his voice. "This is terrible."

"Well, I mean, you're doing a good job with the water there."

"I'm trying to make the sweat an asset, okay?"

"Right."

His phone vibrates, Sam telling him he's up in fifteen minutes. Maybe this is a dream, too.

"I'm not going to make it."

"Yes you are."

"I'm going to _fail_." He's a little horrified to feel his eyes filling with tears. So he closes them, tries to take deep breaths; he doesn't want to get upset in front of Kurt. But when he opens his eyes again, he sees, in the mirror—Kurt _undressing_. He whirls around, eyes wide, "What are you doing!" It comes out slightly more hysterical than he intends.

"Just—" and Kurt's a little bug-eyed, too, his cheeks are flushed, but his hands are steady as they make quick work of his tie, vest and shirt, and they form a small pile along with his jacket next to the sink. He seems to get strength from whatever embarrassment he might be feeling because he says, gamely, "You need clothes. They might be a little big," and crosses his arms. Blaine gets a bit distracted from the way the sleeves of his undershirt cut into his biceps. "They might also be a bit louder than you usually wear, although I've seen that lobster cardigan, I know you can do bold prints—"

"Are you stalking me?" Blaine blurts out.

"What? No." Kurt gives him an unimpressed look. "That thing is impossible to miss."

Kurt puts him back together. That's the way it feels. He turns around politely while Blaine undresses but as soon as he has a shirt on, Kurt's on him, smoothing it over his shoulders and fixing his tie, "Half-Windsor?" and "I'm sorry it's not a bowtie."

The jacket _is_ loud but it's also the New York City skyline; it feels appropriate.

Sam gives him thumbs up when he steps onto the stage and, next to him, Rachel bounces on her seat a little. Kurt smiles at him widely when he's done. Blaine bows with a bit of an extra flourish, just for them.

#

Afterwards, Kurt walks with Blaine back to the dorms. It's eerie, having Kurt in his room. He turns around again while Blaine changes and this time something pickles at the back of Blaine's mind— _Kurt watching him so intently_ — the memory of a memory, vague and incomplete.

"I don't think there's enough coffee in the world," says Blaine sincerely, handing over the jacket and tie, "thank you so much, Kurt."

"You shouldn't be penalized for saving the world," says Kurt, "but I'll take the coffee."

"Tomorrow?"

Kurt blinks, surprised, but he smiles, "yeah. Tomorrow."

They hug goodbye at the door, it's brief but when they pull back, impulsively, Blaine tips up to peck Kurt on the cheek. Something stirs inside him when he realizes Kurt's flushed again, mouth a little open.

"I—I'll give the shirt back tomorrow."

"Y-yeah, don't worry about it."

He squeezes Kurt's arm once more because he doesn't know what else to do, it feels like he's incomplete, like there's something he should be doing, like some part of him should be bursting out of a cake right about now. He tampers down on it until he has the door closed behind Kurt, then he twirls on the soles of his feet, maybe does a little impromptu dance and bites back a smile.

He feels powerful, somehow.


	4. Chapter 4

Blaine takes out the Cards and feels them come alive in his hands, answering to his need.  All except The Firey. But it doesn't matter, adrenaline is rushing through his veins, the world is twisted like an Escher lithograph and there's only one thought running through his head: _I need to find Kurt_. So he runs.

He crashes against his desk chair.

The wind goes out of him and he has to grip at the chair tight to stop his fall, but he's already reaching automatically for his phone on the desk, next to the Cards carefully laid out one next to the other. There's something new, though, a faint fluttering at the back of his mind. A kind insistence.

"I'm okay," he lies instinctively, "I just tripped."

#

Later, he opens his mouth to say: _I can see the future and, heads up, you're in trouble_. What comes out instead is: "I think I have a crush on Sam."

Kurt nearly chokes on his coffee.

Blaine's not supposed to talk about the visions. It's not a rule, not exactly, but it's meant to make his life easier. _It doesn't have to affect you if you don't let it, Blaine_ , his mom told him once before kissing him goodbye, and it's true; his father—well, his father managed a grimace and a joke, _too bad you can't come tell me which version of my boss I'm getting today, huh?_ But he was uncomfortable, Blaine could tell, and his mom had that smile, so the subject was closed forever for him.

He wants to open the subject with Kurt. Kurt has a tendency to make things clearer. He's a kindred spirit, in more than just magic.

"Blaine—"

"He's nice!"

"He's not gay." Kurt says slowly, "I mean, I know the hair can be confusing but he hit on Rachel just last week."

 _It's not like that's actual proof of straightness_ , Blaine wants to say, but he's Sam's friend and he knows the truth is close enough.

"I'm not expecting anything to happen, or want to. He's my friend." It doesn't stop him from feeling giddy every time Sam smiles at him, though. There's something sincere about it that he's not used to. Safe. He wants to add, _I'm ashamed and if I could stop it I would_ , but Kurt looks vaguely disappointed and that shuts him up, makes him look away uncomfortably.

Kurt gets quiet after that.

#

"Did you know that Kurt knows Mercedes Jones?"

"What?" Sam lowers the camera. Artie snaps his fingers at him, " _focus_." Sam frowns, "He's in make-up, am I supposed to be filming?"

Blaine gets done with the blush while Artie explains to Sam the importance of getting the perfect lightning. In the mirror, he catches Brittany staring at him from the iPad screen. He frowns, peering closer at his face, "you think it's too much?"

"Yes!" That's Santana's voice, a little faint. Brittany doesn't seem to hear her.

"Do you meet with Kurt a lot?"

"Just a few times. We usually go out for coffee or dessert, or both. He calls it the 'Lonely Mages Club'." It makes him bite back a smile.

"Is he giving you the secrets of the trade?"

"Yes?" He pats his head down a little and tries on a bright show smile, then tapers it down to a friendly turn of his lips. So he's ready when Artie calls out, "come show us what you've got!"

He's wearing a cape; it adds a touch of drama. He stands on the spot Artie directs him towards, puts his hands on his waist and makes a pose. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sam give him thumbs up.

Releasing the Key feels like power surging into his being, the world tilts dangerously but it seems bearable and worth it should he fall. There's no particular mission centering him but he knows what comes next, Artie told him he wanted a few shots of the Cards in all their glory. Not a hard thing to pull off, the NYADA studio they're in is relatively big and most of the Cards listen to Blaine like they're an extension of him.

Except The Firey, of course, but when Blaine went to Brittany with it, she just said, matter-of-factly, "The Firey doesn't like anyone." But, he knows, it likes Kurt. Blaine is not ashamed of the number of times he's watched Artie's recording. He wants to learn the most he can from it, he needs to do better, he needs to _be_ better. And in the video, every time Kurt would take down The Firey, it seemed to gain a sort of confidence. Even as Kurt cut through the wind like a promise, _you'll never win over me_ , the manifestation of power as he struck down The Firey again and again, and for _Blaine_ , the Card unfurled towards the challenge as if it made it happy to be asked to prove itself.

And then, in the video, there is also the part where Kurt smiled at Blaine, wide and happy, when Blaine agreed with Artie about how impressive Kurt had been. "You're pretty impressive yourself," that's what Kurt said, and warmth unfurled inside him. Every time Blaine looks at himself on the screen he feels a bit torn open. Kurt's comment had made him _happy_ , the way he ducked his head and smiled instinctively couldn't hide the fact he was preening. So Blaine can understand The Firey. Kurt makes him feel like striving for something, too, like working for it, like being inspired.

"Release!"

He allows Sam complete control of The Create. It's Santana's voice again saying, "Watch it, Blaine, last time he managed to conjure up a giant bird that went straight for my head." But despite the fact that Sam doesn't conjure up any birds this time, Artie still ends up frowning, "It's good but it's not sincere." He thinks for two seconds before he directs Blaine to sit down. "Why don't you tell me how it feels being the Card Captor?"

"Um, it's very exciting."

"Yeah, okay, you're going to have to step that up." Artie is telling him about looking into prepping for interviews while Blaine washes off his face when Sam plops down next to him after bagging the equipment.

"What do you mean Kurt knows Mercedes Jones?"

"They went to high school together," says Artie.

"You knew, too?!"

Artie shrugs. "Kurt and I meet. He directs productions at the local senior center and likes my input. He actually gave me a really good interview, mostly by chance. He was talking about Blaine and I asked him if I could have it on the record."

Blaine looks up from the mirror, "he did?"

Kurt looks directly at the camera, his eyes are clear and his voice gets surer as he goes on, "The Cards love him, but it's like he's giving each of them a part of himself. I always felt like if I did that I would disappear. But Blaine... it's like he's boundless."

#

The next best thing after solving a problem is managing it so by the time Blaine started Dalton he had a system. A system of charts, of the things he planned to do during the day, down to five minutes intervals, and, for comparison, of the things he actually did. Because there are things that happened and things that didn't, Blaine gets that, and there are things that will happen and things that could happen, Blaine supposes, but most of them are hard to sort out in his head.

It's mostly the getting lost in the visions that scares him; it makes him feel like reality is something he needs to keep corroborating. Matching time helps him, he keeps hourly alarms which he dutifully crosses off in the note taking app in his phone, and there's always his watch, so it should be obvious if things stop adding up. Still, he thinks it should feel more discrete than this, a clear difference between what is and what can be. But there isn't, or Blaine has trouble distinguishing it.

There's no trusting Blaine, is the point.

#

The Lonely Mages Club hasn't met for a whole week. That's not unbearable, but lately Blaine feels like he wants to tell Kurt so many things. But he hasn't seen Kurt around at NYADA at all, and he's not answering his phone even if he's been dutiful about answering all of Blaine's texts, slowly and succinctly. Blaine doesn't think he can confess about the visions by text, though, the thought of not being able to see Kurt react makes him uncomfortable. So, this is the only way. Right.

The closer he gets to Kurt's place, though, the worst the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness become. He takes a deep breath before knocking on the door, forces himself to count to ten, slowly, before doing it again. Begins again: one. Two. Three. Four. Five. Maybe no one's home. Six— He's taking out his phone while going for the last desperate, hesitant round when Kurt yanks the door open, blinks at him in surprise, and says, annoyed and accusing, " _Blaine_."

"Um, hi?" Kurt's eyes flicker from Blaine to the wall over his shoulder like he's figuring something out. "Are you okay?"

"I'm great," but Kurt's gritting his teeth.

Blaine frowns, concerned. "Can I come in?"

" _No_." Well, then. "Look, Blaine, this isn't a good time," Kurt's eyes go back to the wall behind Blaine's shoulder again like it's offering him some sort of insight.  "I'm busy."

 _Oh_.  "Oh, you—you have company—"

" _No_ —no, I don't, just—" Kurt's eyes go a little wild. Blaine steps forward, alarmed, just as Kurt finally breathes out, " _it's a Card_ —" and the world trembles. Blaine has just enough time to hear Kurt's "Stay away!" before the ground turns into waves. He loses his balance and his footing and closes his eyes on instinct, palms against the ground, until the shaking stops.

#

 _It's a maze._ The only sounds Blaine can make out are his shallow breaths and the beating of his own heart. There's no signal on his phone. He's disoriented—running got him nowhere and now adrenaline is coursing through his veins. He feels like he's going to vibrate out of his skin and it's only Kurt's words, _it's a Card, it's a Card, it's a Card_ , that are now keeping him still. It's a Card, that's why it feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest, it's an attack. _It's a test_.

A familiar one, too, he remembers this stillness, he remembers this need, _I have to find Kurt_ , and as soon as he calls for them, he feels the familiar presence of his Cards offering their help. He tries The Wood first, tells it to mark the place he's leaving from and have one branch follow him, but the unknown Card wises up five steps in and everything starts trembling again. The Wood, disturbed, is back to card form before the reconfiguration is even complete.

Okay, then—an attack. He can't feel The Firey at all when he takes it out and holds it on his open palms, but he needs to try: "Please," feels the magic circle opening up around him, concentrating enough power that when he lets the Card go it stays floating in front of him, "You don't have to trust me, but we have to find Kurt, he's trapped in here. We have to save him, okay?" He twirls the staff around for good measure—magic is a show, it's intimidation, Brittany said—and lifts it up high, bringing it down in a swift, harsh movement, the way he'd seen Kurt wield that sword, "Firey!"

It's like watching a silent movie. The Firey breaks through the nearest wall, rising triumphant against the dark nebulous ceiling. Blaine takes a second to smile wide, feels The Firey's determination slowly sweep into his mind—but the world around them ripples, there's— _confusion_ , The Firey holds on for about ten seconds, a struggle, Blaine thinks, wildly, _use me_ , but it feels like getting boxed in, there's too much pressure—The Firey falls like a blast of light towards the ground and into card form. When Blaine picks it up, it doesn't attempt to draw away, so Blaine just says, "thank you."

The alarm on his phone goes off: _you're getting us through the woods_ , getting louder in otherwise almost complete silence, and Blaine abruptly realizes it's the first sound he's heard in a while other than the ones he's made himself. He's still trying to figure out if it means something when he hears it.

" _It takes two. I thought one was enough, it's not true_ ," comes Kurt's voice, hesitant, faint. Blaine's heart starts beating faster, _oh_. He runs, trying to follow the sound; joins in to guide Kurt: " _It took you. It took two of us. It takes care_."

Kurt's voice gets stronger. " _It takes one to begin but then once you've begun, it takes two_." There's a tunnel upfront and Blaine runs into it without thinking, Kurt's voice turns faint again, _no—no—no_ , he tries singing louder, despite the fact that he's running out of breath, " _It's because I'm becoming aware of us as a pair of us_ —" The tunnel brings him to an open space followed by forking corridors, but Kurt's voice guides him to the right, " _I know we'll get past the woods. And once we're past_ ," he sounds so close—

" _Just the two of us. Beyond lies_ —Kurt!" He turns the corner and sees him, walking briskly in Blaine's direction. They meet in the middle, Kurt's arms wrap around his shoulders and Blaine holds on tight to Kurt's back. It only lasts a few seconds, there's another ripple, but when they spring apart Blaine gets a hold on Kurt's arm. "Are you okay? It's, like, the dimensions are screwed up—"

"Yeah, but it's—"

"A maze!" The ground shakes again. "It's playing with us, right? We won, I found you—"

"Yeah, yeah, seal it now!" Kurt takes Blaine by the hand, "Do it, before it starts again!"

The Maze slides into Blaine's hand like it belongs there.

They are standing just beyond the door inside Kurt and Rachel's loft and not a single thing looks out of place. Kurt recovers quickly, "How about some chamomile tea?"

"Ah, yes, thank you." Blaine watches Kurt busy himself with the kettle and the tea leaves and draws in, pushing his hands inside his pockets. "So…"

"Yeah?"

 _This was it. I should have told you sooner._ "Why didn't you want to let me in?"

Kurt hesitates, "I guess, I—I was confused. I didn't even know if you were—real."

"Hey," Blaine steps forward, lightly touching Kurt's arm, "how long were you in there?"

Kurt shrugs, "Just a few hours."

"I'm sorry."

Kurt raises his eyebrows, "Why? You couldn't have felt The Maze all the way out in Manhattan."

He could have warned Kurt. The speech he prepared is running through his mind but the words get stuck in his throat. He says, instead, "I'm still sorry." Kurt turns towards him and leans back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. He looks like he's waiting so Blaine goes on, "I'm the Card Captor, they are testing _me_ , if this one went after you, it could be because it knows you're my friend, right? I'm sorry."

"Blaine," and Kurt actually sounds frustrated, "if this is the price I have to pay to be your friend—I can take care of myself, all right? Two hours in a ridiculous labyrinth is not a problem, especially because I can't think of a way I could have stayed there for long. At the very least, Rachel would have eventually made it home and then she would have gotten you, and you would have run directly into danger. Just like you did," but he's smiling by the end, fond, and Blaine feels himself smiling back, dropping his head a little before looking back up.

"If I can do this it's because you help me."

"Well, we do make a pretty good team. All of us." He's still smiling when he hands Blaine his tea, "I'll heat up some cinnamon rolls, it'll be a regular meeting of the Lonely Mages Club." He catches Blaine's expression, "I guess that's a silly name, isn't it?"

"It's not silly," Blaine reassures, "but maybe it doesn't fit us?"

"Yeah, you're right." Kurt looks over his shoulder from where he's unpacking the pastries, "I guess we'll just have to hang out like regular friends then."

Blaine can't help the happiness that blooms in his chest, "I'm all for that."

#

"So, I need a consult."

"The turkey looks amazing, Kurt. At this point I don't think there's anything I could possibly tell you," Blaine tells him earnestly.

Kurt laughs. "No," his eyes are sparkling, "it's about _magic_."

"A Card?" Blaine stands up too quickly, everything feels both a little heightened and a bit far away but Kurt gets a tight grip on his shoulder: " _absolutely a Card_." Kurt leads him beyond his bedroom curtain and to his bed and it might be that 'Special Thanksgiving Cocktail' Rachel offered him but his heart starts beating faster.

"Can you feel it?"

"Uh."

"The Card," Kurt pushes a jewelry box into his hands, "can you?"

It's vibrating under Blaine's fingertips—except it's not, really, it's vibrating inside Blaine's mind, _on_ , like an engine working. "What is this?"

"I don't know. The Lock? I can't open it. It doesn't feel malicious. I think it's trying to help me." At Blaine's confused look, Kurt adds, "it's my mom's jewelry box."

It's like a block of metal, there's no give at all when Blaine tries his hand at prying the lid off. "Wow." He really needs his mind to be clearer. "So how is it helping?"

" _Trying_ to. I think it may want to work like a safe. Just—I don't have the code to open it."

"Right. So I'll just—" Blaine fumbles for the key at his neck just as the doorbell rings.

"It's okay; we can take care of it later. That has to be Brittany and Santana."

Blaine skips on a refill of Rachel's cocktail and opts for water instead. That and Kurt's turkey actually make him feel closer to his skin. There's a Card around, he can't get sloppy.

They're on the couch having dessert when Sam leans in close, his shoulder bumping Blaine's, "so Artie thinks we should try a recreation of the coolest parts of the whole maze thing."

"Yes. He texted you, too?"

"Yeah. You have to show me that 'fabric of the universe rippling' thing, that sounded cool."

"It should be. In a controlled environment."

Sam nods solemnly. "Right." He leans back. "So, are you going to play up the whole rivalry thing with Kurt or is this one of those rivals-turned-lovers things? Because as I understand the lightning is different and Artie's pretty serious about that sort of stuff."

"What? No—"

"I'm pretty sure it is."

"No, I mean, I don't have—lovers." _Oh my god_.

"Hey, it's fine if you want to wait." Sam is actually patting his knee and Blaine wishes he could be – guiltily – enjoying it.

"Kurt and I are friends!"

"Yes, I know, and I don't want to pressure you. I just wanted to know how you're playing it for the camera." Sam is so close his breath is fanning over Blaine's face. Blaine catches Kurt's eye from across the room and blushes. Under Kurt's gaze he suddenly feels too exposed, Kurt knows too much and—he's tried not to think about that vision lately, but he's acutely aware of the possibility—Kurt can also hold too much power. He can't quite summon the feeling right now, not when he's surrounded by his friends like this, but he knows he wrote down the words 'loneliness' and 'crushing hurt' when he added it to his tracking journal. So there's that.

He doesn't have a lot of time to contemplate, though, because there comes an, "Oh my god!" that can't be anyone other than Rachel. By the time Blaine shoots up and looks over, Kurt is pulling Rachel towards him and barely away from Santana and a _sword_.

"Santana!" Brittany jumps in between them but Santana doesn't stop, she swings the sword around with an ease that has Brittany crouching down and scrambling aside.

"I was just showing her the brooch we bought, Kurt!"

Blaine releases the Key with his eyes on Kurt and watches him draw out a sword out of his own arm. Kurt and Santana meet in the middle of the room. She's quick; Kurt meets every one of her attacks but it's not like he can attack _back_.

"It's The Sword!" says Brittany. "It's controlling her!"

Blaine pushes Sam and the phone he has out and recording away from the couch and towards Brittany and Rachel. "How do we stop her?"

"Separating them. While The Sword has a vessel and it's able to attack you won't be able to seal it," says Brittany, angry, and without taking her eyes off Santana: "It was hiding as a brooch you just bought?"

"Yeah, Kurt and I bought it at the flea market," says Rachel.

"They have to know Blaine is sealing them away," Brittany sets her feet apart and clenches her fists.

"So they're targeting the team?" Sam asks, worried.

Rachel suddenly attempts to step forward, "Kurt!" Santana manages to graze Kurt's shoulder before he can pivot on his feet and Blaine has a Card out before he has even thought it through.

"Windy!" A few things topple over and The Windy can't put enough pressure on Santana to separate her from The Sword without hurting her but at least it allows Kurt a reprieve.

"It's _learning_ ," says Brittany. It's learning too fast. Kurt looks pained and there's already blood on the sleeve of his shirt.

"Wood!" But The Sword doesn't care about Santana, The Wood and its branches hold her still for as long as it can, her eyes blank, pushing forward, until Blaine gets scared she'll break trying to get out. He waits for Kurt's nod but doesn't consider how quick Santana can move. The moment he has The Wood let go she's on Kurt who shoots his sword up to stop the downwards swing of The Sword. They struggle for only a couple of seconds before Kurt's sword clatters to the floor.

Blaine doesn't think about what he does next. When Kurt falls back against the wall trying to escape The Sword and down to the floor, he runs.

" _No_!"

Blaine's eyes close instinctively but for a few seconds all he feels, apart from his heart wanting to jump out of his chest, is the low hum at the very back of his mind growing stronger. Strong enough that it doesn't feel like it's inside him anymore but all around, like _he_ is inside _it_.

"What is that?" _A force field_ , thinks Blaine wildly. Santana is still standing in front of them and The Sword is drawn out, mid-swing, but stopping it is a single hovering wing, the source of the barrier that surrounds them.

"It's The Shield." Brittany walks up to them and she sounds surprised when she says, "they are at a stalemate." She touches Santana's hands, still gripped tight around the hilt of The Sword. "You can let go now, honey," and so soft Blaine thinks he's not supposed to hear, "I'm sorry." She draws Santana away gently and The Sword falls to the floor, defeated. "Do it now, Blaine."

#

"Are you okay?"

Kurt looks up from where he's running his thumb over the gauze on his bicep. "I'm fine," he says, "Rachel just worries too much."

"I think Rachel worries just enough." Kurt leans back against the back of his swiveling chair and Blaine feels his eyes follow him as he crosses to the bed and sits down, hands folded over his lap. "Is your jewelry box okay?"

"Well, you sealed the culprit so I can open it now. It's a big upgrade."

"Yes but I guess you were right, it _was_ trying to help. Brittany says The Shield likes to protect what's most important to someone." Kurt looks away and Blaine tries to backtrack—"not that I'm saying, I'm not—"

" _Blaine_ ," Kurt leans in and his eyes are a steely grey, "of course you're important to me. When I saw you there, I was so scared."

"I was scared The Sword was going to hurt you, too."

Kurt nods. "Can I ask you something?" Blaine gives him a questioning look. "Before, when we were going out for coffee, I thought you were interested in me." It's not a question. Blaine isn't sure he knows the answer, anyway. _Do you feel anything for me at all?_

"Kurt, I'm sorry. I'm so bad at this." Blaine takes a deep breath, _say the truth_. "I've never been in a relationship before." He sees Kurt's eyes widen in surprise. "Somehow, nobody got close enough," Blaine looks down at his hands, curling up over his lap, "I think I might be sabotaging myself, too."

"It's okay. It's not like I'm super experienced either." Blaine closes his eyes, sees another Kurt in his mind and feels the shadow of despair draw up from the depths of his memory; it's too close to his skin now, it scares him. Kurt must see it in his face, "it's okay, don't worry about it," he hesitates only for a second, "I'm glad I know you."

Honestly, that one's easy. The future screws with him all the time but, in the present, this is a truth Blaine's managed to pull out of the confused mess of his mind, whatever other possibilities there may be: "I'm glad I know you, too."

#

"Hey," says Santana, startling him out of counting down the minutes until their train comes. She takes a seat next to him and buries her hands in the pockets of Brittany's jacket. "I feel like I should apologize for almost running you through with a sword," she goes on, "but don't get used to it."

Blaine shakes his head. "It wasn't you."

"I think it was a little bit me," says Santana, looking over to where Sam is showing Brittany the video he recorded for Artie's documentary, "I watched that video, that Card didn't give me those kickass reflexes."

Blaine smiles against his will. He sees Brittany glancing up from Sam's phone, slide her gaze to Santana and then back again to the video, satisfied. It prompts him into asking, "How did you know?"

"While my Mexican third eye might make it seem like I can, I don't actually read minds, Blaine."

"I mean, how did you know that Brittany..." _wasn't going to hurt you, wasn't going to make you feel like dying, was never going to look at you and not see you. Or worse, do and decide you weren't worth the trouble_.

Santana turns quizzical eyes on him, "that she was the one?"

"No." Blaine says, "I think I know that." Blaine cannot imagine falling in love and being able to get back up. Giving yourself over to someone and being able to get it all back. It's never worked. "Never mind."

Santana looks like she's rolling her eyes at him. "You are never going to make things easy for anyone, are you?"


	5. Chapter 5

In another lifetime, a Tina Turner impersonator had smiled at him, pleasant, "ah, it's Golden Boy Blaine." It'd made his stomach feel funny and he'd smiled as a reflex and taken a sip of his drink only to have an excuse to look away.  

Except that didn't happen. When Sebastian asked him to Scandals for Drag Queen Wednesday, he lied about promising his mom he would help her organize her craft room. Sebastian laughed but left it alone. He had other options anyway.

Later, Blaine's mom leaned against the doorframe and watched him throw away empty and dry bottles of glitter, full of amusement. Eventually she left too, kissed him goodbye and told him she would bring pastries back from the café where she was meeting her high school friends for an all-girls reunion. That was fine; she didn't need to be there to be helped.

#

The thing is, the present is more certain than the future, but, also, all gambles happen in the present.

It's Pre-Finals Karaoke Night and by the time Kurt is done with his Sweeney Todd medley Blaine doesn't need the half bottle of beer tingling under his skin to lean in and tell him, "We should sing something together."

"What do you have in mind?"

Nothing but the way the lights are making Kurt's eyes sparkle.

 _He's very powerful_ , that's what Brittany said over fondue when Blaine told her he felt drawn to Kurt, but that can't possibly encompass all of it. Is it power when Kurt laughs, and when he yells, and when he tells Blaine everything he's ever felt? When he cracks Blaine open and explains Blaine to himself? It might be a special kind of power the way singing with Kurt makes Blaine have to keep biting back a smile too big, too content, like if he gives in it's going to burst out of his chest and lay him bare for all the world to see.

Blaine can't help it, he tries to mimic Kurt's shimmy up on stage, watches his lips form the words _someone's bound to get burned_ and feels the fear slip from his fingertips. He thinks, wildly, _maybe it's all right to walk into a burning building sometimes_ , maybe for once it's all right if he gives in, if he ends up in somebody else's trap.

#

They are still on stage when the lights go out. Kurt's voice dies out as the world fades. Blaine reaches out for his hand, "A Card?" Kurt matches Blaine's grip. He's burning hot. "Kurt, what—"

"Sorry, reflex," but Kurt is trembling and his voice is barely a whisper, "I can't hold it back."

"Kurt!"

He's alone.

For a moment, Blaine doesn't understand. He's still reaching out and it takes a few seconds for his brain to catch up and lower his arm. He goes for his phone in his back pocket on automatic. There's nothing but darkness all around, palpitating—alive? His phone reads 07:35 p.m. It makes sense but unless there's a memory obviously out of place it always makes sense.

So he sets his feet shoulder-width apart, raises his chin and takes a deep breath with his eyes fixed on the Key held out on his palm; whether real or not, his friends need Card Captor Blaine. "The Key that holds the power of darkness, reveal your true form to me. I, Blaine, command you through our contract. Release!" But the Key stays limp on his hands. He tries concentrating harder. "Release!" Sweat breaks up at the back of his neck. " _Release_!"

Dread makes him stop. "Kurt!" He tries again instead. "Sam! Artie! Rachel!"

There's nothing but darkness and he has no magic. The knowledge settles at the pit of his stomach. There's a Card around and he's just _Blaine_.

 _Don't panic_ —he turns in a circle, takes in the dark on all sides, and squares his shoulders instead, "Who are you?"

Another Card with some reality warping power—he has to force himself to stay upright when the darkness ripples all around him, _through_ him, still an entirely unpleasant feeling that leaves him shuddering. But okay, he thinks he can understand that: "The Darkness?" He waits a beat, two, five. Nothing changes. "Okay. The Dark?"

Yes. That's right. The world wavers again, a single acknowledgement that makes him want to curl up into a small ball to hold on. He doesn't, he takes a deep breath instead and clenches his fists. _Buck up, Blaine, fix it, there's no other option_. The idea of existing alone in this perpetual solitude is too much to handle.

It takes him a moment to realize The Dark seems to agree with him—he thinks back to The Maze and the slow walk up the stairs to Kurt's loft when he'd been suddenly filled with an unsettling feeling of hopelessness—like back then it starts up in the middle of his chest. Unlike back then he sees a concrete manifestation of the Card's attack this time when darkness begins to consume him from the ground up. Blaine struggles instinctively, tries to step out even though there's nothing he can't step out _of_. It's like he's fading out. The Dark is filling him up, trying to put out the last shred of light, trying to put out _Blaine_ , the last candle in the midst of a blackout.

 _Wait_.

"I'm glowing?"

 _Yes_. That's not him, he can tell that much, but it comes from inside him; an undertone, a nudge, the way the Cards under his power make themselves known. This one is not under contract to him yet but its power is filling him up to the brim anyway. _What can drive the darkness away? What glows in the dark?_

Blaine finally gives into curling his arms around himself; it's too much, this sudden surge of energy. When he finally manages to muster words again his voice comes out as a whisper, overcome: "The Light."

#

"Blaine, are you okay?" and that's Kurt and Blaine is, inexplicably, wonderful. He's so wonderful he thinks about leaning in right now and—but they are still on stage and the song is dying down around them. Kurt looks uncertain.

Sam stands up to meet them when they walk back to their table, "uh, did something just happen?"

"Yes."

"What?"

Blaine's feels like he's going to vibrate out of his skin, a strange mixture of certainty and nervousness that threatens to leave him breathless. Kurt is looking at him oddly but how can Blaine possibly explain? Not in front of their friends, not yet at least, not in the middle of a crowd, so he just shakes his head with what he hopes is a reassuring smile.

"There was a Card," explains Kurt.

"There were two," corrects Blaine.

Artie says, "What, I missed it _again_?"

"Well, there wasn't much to _see_ , anyway." Kurt takes up explaining to Artie and Rachel what he knows. But Blaine is looking at Sam, Sam with his wide, kind eyes and that thin, worried frown. He's become one of Blaine's best friends; maybe he can somehow tell how much it feels like the ground has shifted, but for good—from quicksand to cement; how much it feels like Blaine can do _anything_ right now, like he can hear the world finally singing along. So he blurts it out because he can't keep it in anymore: "Everything's all right."

Maybe everything is not going to _be_ all right but everything is all right _now_ , so—Blaine's heart is beating fast, he can't stop thinking about it: The Light saying, _I've been residing inside of you: you are the brightest thing, where else would I go?_ and The Dark warning, _the final decision falls upon the moon so don't let this be your fall_ — _let's have this, let's have it now_ , he thinks, something life changing like the Cards, something real. Sebastian could only hurt him so much, Sam, whom he adores, was always going to be a way to feel like he was playing without having to go all in but—Blaine squeezes Kurt's arm. "Can we go out for some air?"

"Sure," Kurt says, sounding relieved. "Listen, I'm sorry I left you alone, it was so insistent I got a little out of control, I was scared the place was going to burn down—"

"Kurt, don't worry about that," Blaine shakes his head and stops himself from taking Kurt's hand, _not yet._ "There was a Card inside me."

"What?"

"The Light, but that's not even the point." Blaine takes a deep breath. "I have to tell you something."

"Yeah?" and Kurt might be looking at him like wants to ask _are you sure you're okay_ in that mild way of his that suggests both worry and judgment and like what he's really saying is _you're acting crazy_ but he's indulging Blaine and it's enough.

"Before, I was scared," Blaine says, "Of—us, of this," he puts a hand to his chest, "I was scared of getting hurt but I'm not anymore, Kurt, because there's this moment when you have to decide what some things are worth to you and I—" _I trust you_.

"Blaine—" but Blaine says, "No, I have to tell you—you're so important to me and nothing that has ever happened or will happen matters anymore, because this feels so right to me, Kurt—do you—" He should have practiced this more but he's here already and, anyway, Kurt, who always knows what to say, meets him halfway: "My god, honestly, I was so obvious, how is this even a question? _Blaine_."

"I want to kiss you," Blaine confesses.

"Why don't you?"

"I want to kiss you ways that are not appropriate for the street curb." Kurt actually laughs out loud, startled and sweet, and Blaine can't resist him. He leans in, intending to be soft, but Kurt locks him in place with a hand on his shoulder and by the time they part Blaine blurts out, a little desperately, "My roommate is probably in my room," and then catches himself, "I'm not saying—"

"Rachel's staying out late, we have a few hours at my place." Kurt looks like he's trying to stop himself from smiling too wide. "Okay?"

"Okay."

Blaine doesn't forget that he's supposed to be careful; he just chooses to ignore it. This is worth it. The feeling blossoming in his chest will always be worth it.

Kurt opens the door and lets him in first. Inside Kurt's loft, Blaine can kiss him the way he wants to, long and unrestrained. It's unlike anything he's ever experienced before; he finds out he likes being locked within Kurt's arms. He likes the way Kurt alternates between gripping tight and sliding his palm gently against his sides, up his arms and to his shoulders. He likes that Kurt doesn't stop him from trying to crowd him, wanting closer, _closer_ —

Kurt's fingers skim along the back of his neck and Blaine squirms away with a startled giggle. 

"I like that," Kurt says with a spark in his eyes.

"What, me laughing in the middle of this?" 

Kurt's smile is gentle, "Yeah," he breathes, like it's true, so Blaine has to kiss him again.

#

Kurt takes him behind his curtains and stops. He's gentle when he draws Blaine close and leans down to press their foreheads together, "I've wanted this since the first time I saw you." It's a whisper, a confession, and Blaine swallows harshly, suddenly overcome. Because he wants to, so much, to be able to promise Kurt that he can be always put together, he can always be Card Captor Blaine, but—"I'm not," Blaine needs Kurt to know, it's like a test, a task he can't fail. "Sometimes, I pretend like I am, but I'm not—"

"You're sweet," Kurt says, "and brave."

"I'm scared I'm going to fail." Kurt can have it all, it's like the tide, he can't stop it and he can't hide.

"You've done pretty well until now," Kurt reassures gently, "and I'm going to be there, too, for everything that's left."

#

"Just—" Kurt says, pushing a hand under Blaine's shirt—and Kurt could do anything right now, Blaine feels so gone, on his back, on Kurt's bed, with Kurt's weight pinning him down—"Just, you have to _know_ , the first time I met you, you put yourself between me and danger; Rachel screamed and you came running. Then, the next time, you asked those two cards to help you and they did, without hesitation, because they wanted to do it. You naturally wield spells like they are shared agreements, instead of impositions on the natural world. I just—you are incredible."

"Is this some form of dirty talk?"

Kurt laughs but he settles in closer and Blaine loses it more the more he feels Kurt's obvious interest against any part of his body. "Is it working?" Blaine leans up on his elbows to kiss him as the answer but Kurt pulls back quickly, shakes his head. His fingers are still skimming under Blaine's shirt, though, against his sides, when he says, lightly, "Have you ever—?"

"No," says Blaine, "Nothing that counts, anyway."

"We don't have to do anything more if you're not ready."

"I'm ready to do everything with you," Blaine says sincerely. "I just don't want you to think..."

"What?"

"That I'm… not _classy_."

Kurt bursts out laughing. Blaine feels a little like he's on a tightrope but the safety net is not going anywhere. "I promise you, you and your reppe stripped bowtie are the classiest things in here right now."

#

Kurt makes him remember: _it was supposed to be this way all this time but, for a while, I forgot_. The words flow free afterwards, like Kurt has turned a switch somehow and Blaine can't bear this big a secret between them anymore.

"Sometimes I can see the future," he says against Kurt's bare shoulder. Kurt's hand answers him, wide and reassuring down his back and up again to his neck, and it makes Blaine snuggle closer, his own arms tightening around Kurt's waist. "It's like taking a peek at an upcoming chapter when you just started the book, but it's like I slip into that very moment so it _feels_ more like being a book with its pages rearranged because now you can't un-know it, right? It's something else you have to use now."

Kurt cups Blaine's face and tilts it up to be able to look him in the eye. He says, "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" and kisses him.

Rachel comes home but Kurt tells him to stay and Blaine agrees eagerly and in the morning he's slow to leave. He makes breakfast and takes Rachel's excited hug easily. Even then, he wants to tell Kurt: _say you'll remember me_ , because now the future is coming. Kurt doesn't need him to say anything, though, he hugs Blaine goodbye like he can't bear to let him go either.

When Blaine gets back to his room, the only proof of what happened last night is himself, his memories of Kurt, sweaty and undone, and the marks and aches of his body. He laughs out loud, biting his lip hard and feeling it swollen in the best way.

For a while after that, he can't stop smiling.

#

It's the end of January when Sam says, "Remember Mercedes Jones?"

Blaine gives Sam a sideway glance, "Yes, of course I do, she was here for New Years', remember?"

"Hm," Sam is concentrating on his number of kills, Blaine can tell by the type of frown on his face, "Yeah, well, she's going to be here next week for a small concert. We should totally check it out."

"Sure," Blaine uses the time while his character is reviving to think it over—"Wait, how do you know before me? Kurt hasn't said anything."

"I found out from the artist herself," Sam shrugs, "Facebook, Twitter, Skype, you know, we talk."

Blaine swallows back his smile, amused. "Well, thumbs up for technology."

Technology, as it turns out, is nothing compared to meeting Mercedes in person again. Sam and Blaine arrive at the mall for sound check, as instructed, and she's already up on stage and in the middle of a song. She still takes the time to smile brightly when she sees them and Sam can't take his eyes off of her. Rachel bounces up to them, "Come on, guys, get closer," and leads Sam away just as Kurt materializes next to Blaine.

"Hey, you."

"Hey—I got you something."

"Why? It's not my birthday. Is it an early Valentine's Day present?" Kurt's eyes are narrowed but he's pleased, already reaching for the bag Blaine's offering.

Blaine feels like he's tempting fate but, as he's reminded himself all month since this started, he also wants to go in with his eyes wide open, confident in each of the puzzle pieces as they turn into the full picture, "they just made me think of you."

"Aw, you're a sweetie—oh, these are great! They'll go perfect with my new baroque glass collection." The coasters are exactly the ones he saw in his vision but, he tells himself, there was no other option; as Kurt said, none of the other models would be as perfect. "Thank you, honey."

Kurt leads him towards the stage with an arm around his shoulders and sings along for a few songs with his hand in Blaine's. It's no less thrilling a month after Blaine finally took the leap and decided to give himself over and drown in Kurt than it was at the beginning, it's even better now after knowing how sweetly Kurt can open up to him, can make him feel wanted and needed. "You make me feel real," Kurt confessed once, laying back against the pillows on Blaine's bed and reaching over to tug him up and into his arms. He waited for Blaine's kiss, the way they'd settled into after the first few times when Blaine discovered kissing Kurt firmly after having him in his mouth made his swollen lips feel hypersensitive in the best of ways. "It's like I'm not shouting into the void, like I'm not meandering around wasting myself, it's like... I have an audience that sees me, and I know you may not like everything you see—"

"Kurt, you are—"

"I yell and I interrupt you and I don't listen and too many times it's too much like I'm up on the stage," he rushed out, "and sometimes I want… I want to keep you hidden and just for me."

Blaine pressed a kiss to Kurt's cheek then, said softly, "I know what you mean."

"You make me feel real and it's not because of the magic... it's because you see me."

"You see me, too," and Blaine, surprisingly enough, believed it when he said it, and it wasn't as scary as he thought it would be, "You make me feel certain."

#

Blaine stops short on his way back from the bathroom. He can feel it like a warning, like a crack of electricity—there's something approaching. He takes off in a run, hears Sam yell "look out!" and Mercedes break off with a scream. When Blaine arrives, Sam's on the stage, one arm around Mercedes, and Kurt is stalking off.

"Is she—?"

"I'm fine," Mercedes says, hands at her throat, so Blaine follows Kurt. They are too late, though— Blaine finds he can feel and follow the trail left by the Card, the perturbation in the air that surrounds them, but he's not quick enough, and when they find Rachel, frozen and in shock down on the floor by the girl's bathroom, the only thing she can do is point at her throat.

#

"It can't be anything other than The Voice," says Brittany, "were you singing?"

Rachel holds up her phone: _I was running scales. My mid-afternoon exercises._

"It probably liked what it heard."

"It tried to attack Mercedes, too," says Blaine.

Brittany nods, "It's a pretty annoying card, it'll try to steal all the voices it finds nice."

Kurt, who's been pacing the room since they got back, finally stops to look at Brittany, arms crossed over his chest. "So we just lure it in with something it likes, trap it and capture it." Blaine is a little worried that Kurt says 'capture' like he means _murder_ but he gets why Kurt is mad. These are two of the most important people in his life and they are not magic-wielders, they are not supposed to get hurt, much less with something as important as their voices.

Rachel pokes him gently on the arm and he turns to find her holding up her phone to him: _I'm sure you'll fix it. We all trust you_. She gives him a brave smile and Blaine nods, certain, "I'll absolutely do it, Rachel."

#

Later, he walks by Rachel's curtains to offer some tea. He's not eavesdropping but—"I'm sorry," he hears Kurt say, there's a pause, for Rachel to write, Blaine supposes, and then—"Don't say that, when I took this job I promised you nothing would happen to you. So don't play at being so calm, Rachel Berry, I know you're freaking out."

Kurt comes to bed half an hour later, he presses up against Blaine's back, his face pressed to Blaine's neck, one hand gripping Blaine's over his belly. Blaine says, "How's Rachel?"

"She'll be okay. Everything is going to be okay." He squeezes Blaine's hand.

Blaine thinks: _what job_? But he doesn't ask, suddenly afraid.

#

"Are you sure about this?"

"For the last time: _yes_! You both need to stop hovering." Mercedes glares playfully at Sam and Kurt, "right, Blaine?"

Blaine tries for a smile. "They are just worried about you."

"Yes, and isn't it sweet? But we have a plan and the best Card Captor in the state, so quit worrying, already."

Kurt leans in and takes Blaine's hand, "I trust you." Card Captor Blaine doesn't need reassurance right now but it _does_ make _Blaine_ feel better, despite the doubt that has now settled semi-permanently right in the middle of his chest.

Rachel hugs Mercedes who whispers back, certain, "it's gonna be okay."

#

Kurt says, "Maybe we should celebrate," and Blaine thinks about the way Kurt trapped The Voice within the room after Mercedes drew it out—he'd made it burn, not with fire, just the touch of his hands against the walls until The Voice stopped trying to phase out the way it'd come in, curled up in the middle of the room, in pain. Blaine, feeling sweat slide freely down his back and the side of his face, sealed the Card thinking _what job, what job, what_ —

For a moment, he considers asking Kurt but Kurt presses their lips together and he's hard against Blaine's hip. Blaine thinks, _no_ , but then remembers how sweetly Kurt always looks at him when they do this. He thinks about coming out of The Dark, high on the power and certainty of The Light, leaping from the cliff and thinking he was soaring off. _Don't let this be your fall_.

"Kurt," he says, suddenly overcome, "let's do it, again—" and Kurt grins against his mouth, his fingers hot under Blaine's shirt, against his hips. Blaine considers saying something stupid, like _t_ _urn it up_ _like you just did for The Voice,_ _leave_ _your_ _marks on my skin_ _, would you want that_? He doesn't even know if the prospect of following through on that is terrifying or not.

He ends up panting against Kurt's mouth, crying out, wanting him deeper, wanting to have him _moremoremore_ until he stops feeling so insecure; if Kurt is a part of him then maybe it's all real, maybe he won't leave, maybe Blaine will be able to stop thinking everything is a red flag for the future he's terrified of. So Blaine's legs lock Kurt there, where Blaine can take in everything about Kurt that is Blaine's: the way his hair is ruffled from Blaine's hands, the redness of his lips from Blaine kissing him so desperately, the way his eyes are hooded and amazed because he's looking at Blaine, the way his thrusts are out of control—

And Blaine tries to forget and forget and forget.


	6. Chapter 6

In the end, everything is too brittle, _Blaine_ is too brittle.

Brittany meets him after his Contemporary Dance class and tells him, "We're celebrating!"

"What are we celebrating?" Blaine asks, letting her pull him by the hand.

"That we are almost there, Card Captor, there's only two cards left!"

That's both exciting— _yes, mission accomplished_ —and also maybe a little disappointing— _I'll have to give them back_ , the contract will be over. It makes him feel stupidly alone, like he'll need something new to be. Again.

"Are we waiting for Kurt?"

"No, he doesn't have class today. Let's go just the two of us, we started everything, right?"

And this way they can talk _about_ Kurt; Blaine goes around what he's really interested in and says, "Can I ask about your job?"

"I'm just a service provider," Brittany explains, "I'm very talented, I adapt to receive specific abilities with my contract, depending on the tasks I'm given."

"So right now you're the Guardian of The Book."

"Well, one of them. I'm The Sun, I use my own power in the service of protecting The Book and the Cards, I take care of making sure they are properly sealed and I choose who might enter into additional contracts with them."

"There's another guardian?"

"Yes," says Brittany, taking his hand to cross the street, "The Moon. You'll meet them soon. Like I said, there are only two cards left."

"Why haven't I met them before?"

"You need all the Cards to awaken them, they don't have their own source of power."

"Ah," there's something— "The Dark! It said _the fin_ _al decision falls upon the moon_."

"Oh, they are ruining the surprise," but Brittany doesn't seem too phased by it, "basically—if you want the Cards, you'll have to prove it to The Moon."

That makes him stop short. "I can keep them?"

"Do you want them? Because if you do, Card Captor Blaine, then you have to know that I believe in you, okay?" There are a million thoughts rushing through his mind and he's so touched that he almost forgets where this is going. But Brittany gets him right back on point when she says, "that's why it's good that Kurt hasn't kept any of the Cards, I don't know who he's working for. That's a big mess."

The floor drops from under his feet, he feels too cold all of a sudden, and it's more than just the February weather. "What?"

"I'm guessing he's some sort of retriever, maybe just a hunter, or a fixer, I'm not sure."

"You're saying you think Kurt has been asked to deal with the Cards, that it's not just—"

"A coincidence?" Brittany frowns at him. "He and the people he knows keep getting involved in the Cards' games, I think someone with some influence has to be directing that, presenting him as an alternate candidate to you."

"And you didn't think I should have known that?"

"You should have known. Why didn't you? Did you ask?"

They are standing in front of the coffee place but Blaine can't bear to sit down and _celebrate_ right now. "Brittany, I have to go."

She pokes at his chest lightly, "Okay, but you owe me a drink, Card Captor."

#

Blaine doesn't ask, he sends Kurt a text: _I'm coming to your place_.

Maybe he should have started softer but he's so agitated not even Kurt's smile helps to settle him down and he blurts out, "I think you should stop lying."

"What are you talking about? I've never lied to you."

"Not saying something is still lying." Blaine throws his hands up. "Is there something you want to say to me? About the Cards?"

"Blaine—"

"Are you a—retriever? What else is there apparently, a hunter? A fixer—"

"Blaine, stop," Kurt raises his hands up in surrender, "Look, this has nothing to do with you—"

"How? How does it have nothing to do with me? I'm the Card Captor!" Blaine thinks, _do you feel anything for me at all_? "And I'm your _boyfriend_ , this is your _job_! I get to know!"

"Okay, okay—I just, I didn't think it mattered that much. It was a personal favor, very secretive. I was told not to say anything—"

"And when it came the time to hand them in, then what?"

"The agreement was to make sure they were recovered safely, there were no clauses regarding outsourcing—"

" _What_?" Blaine gives him an incredulous look.

Kurt rolls his eyes but raises his hands again in a placating gesture, "Stop being so crazy about this. Everything's okay, I'm not taking anything away from you."

That's not it, except it might be some of it, and Blaine feels stung that Kurt would use this shameful truth against him when he knows that's not the point. The point is trust. The point is—"I told you about the visions. That was a secret, that was—"

Kurt tries to reach out for his hand, "Blaine—" but Blaine draws back.

"Who is it?"

"My client asked for complete confidentiality. I can't tell you." And Blaine doesn't know what face he makes before he presses the heels of his palms against his eyes but Kurt attempts to explain, "Reputation—"

"I know," and it comes out more strangled than he ever wants.

"Blaine," Kurt draws in again and this time Blaine lets him take his hand, "You never asked anything—I, I liked that, and I didn't stay because I want your cards. I just want you, okay?" How does Kurt _know_? Blaine wants to believe that. He does. He bites his bottom lip, shakes his head, he's going to start crying. Kurt draws him into his arms and Blaine takes a few shallow breaths before he can take a deep one, and nods into Kurt's shoulder, " _okay_." He doesn't let Kurt hold him for long, though, "I told Brittany I would meet her soon."

Kurt holds his face when he kisses him goodbye and Blaine grips at Kurt's forearms tightly, "I'll see you later, okay?"

#

Blaine doesn't sleep at all, he's nevertheless up and about one hour before his Musical History class and walking into his favorite coffee place around the corner from his dorms for some much needed caffeine and maybe a cronut when he spots Kurt already inside and swiping a bagged baby cupcake from the frozen section and slipping it into his pocket. He's so stunned that by the time he approaches him, Kurt has already taken a seat by the window and is happily unwrapping his treat.

"Did you just steal that baby cupcake?"

Kurt looks up at him with interest but doesn't bother to stop, "It looks good."

" _Kurt_ ," But Kurt just goes on eating it in front of Blaine's appalled face. When he's done, he brushes invisible crumbs from his shirt and says, "We should go ice skating."

"I have _class_ ," Blaine answers, "You’re not going to pay for it?"

Kurt rolls his eyes at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Kurt—" but Kurt takes him by the hand and pulls, "are you always this slow?"

"Stop, stop—Kurt, stop!" he hisses, because he doesn’t want to make a scene. Kurt lets go of his hand but frowns at him, annoyed. "We'll go ice-skating," Blaine finally deflates, "Just, wait here." He explains to the cashier that he ate the cupcake and accidentally threw the bag away, buys another one and leaves a ten dollar tip in the tip jar.

"Chocolate," says Kurt when he sees him come back.

"It’s mine." But Blaine shares it anyway.

#

That's how Blaine ends up skipping class for the first time. He insists they go back to NYADA afterwards, though, he has an afternoon class and he doesn't want to miss that, too. Kurt frowns but then leans back to give Blaine a once over and announces, "I want to go to your room." Blaine doesn't want to say no, this feels too breakable, still, everything with Kurt. But when they take the elevator, Kurt presses the button to the highest floor instead and they end up walking the stairs up to the roof.  


"Have you been here before?"

Blaine draws his coat closer, "No."

"It's a nice view." It's an okay view; Blaine doesn't really have it in himself to appreciate it much right now. He startles out of thinking about what he's going to tell his Musical History teacher next class and how much he wants to call attention to it, anyway, it's not as if people don't have legitimate reasons to not go to class, when Kurt climbs up onto the parapet and draws his arms out at either side.

"Kurt, what are you _doing_?" Blaine really doesn't want to see that, it's too dangerous, too scary; he approaches the parapet slowly and attempts to swing his arm up to get at one of Kurt's hands.

Kurt just laughs, "Want to come up here, too?"

" _No_."

"Please?" It's too much, this test; he doesn't know what he's supposed to do. He looks up at Kurt's face, open and welcoming, and at the arm he's stretching towards Blaine to invite him in. He gives in.

It's a bad idea—Kurt lets go of his hand too quickly and Blaine loses his footing. That would be fine, he's falling backwards towards the rooftop, except Kurt tries to pull him back up and for a second they sway dangerously before Blaine desperately pulls at Kurt's hand, toppling them over back onto the roof.  
  
When he comes to, Kurt is leaning over him and he looks confused and a little terrified. "You're all right?" He's not, he hurts all over and he's afraid of touching his hair to feel for blood, but he still sits up, trying to be soothing. "Why did you do that?"  
  
"I didn't want to see you hurt."  
  
"But you're mad, aren't you?"  
  
Blaine says, like it makes any sense, "I just want to be proved wrong."

#  
  
He looks at Kurt's eyes, and the perfect coif on his head and the way his muscles are tightly drawn in confusion, and tries, "I was so scared of this, you don't even know," and Kurt doesn't, really, Blaine has never told him, "It's happening but I want to forgive you so much."  Kurt looks directly at him and tilts his head to the side, considering. "Tell me you understand _why_ ," Blaine begs.  
  
They are close enough and Blaine feels his hands tremble, suddenly terrified, but he still leans in, they both do, he doesn't think he would have been able to do it if Kurt hadn't met him halfway, and they kiss, and it's enough to make him shudder, but he still waits for Kurt to be the one to pull back.  
  
"I'm sorry," Kurt says reaching up to catch Blaine's tears with the tip of his fingers. Blaine means to draw his hand away but he ends up gripping it instead.  
  
"Blaine!" And Blaine turns back, his heart at his throat, because approaching from behind them while he still has those long thick fingers enclosed in his own, are Brittany and _Kurt_.

#  


"What is going on?"

Kurt, the real Kurt, makes to rush towards him but Brittany holds him back. "What—?"

"Blaine, look at it," says Brittany and when Blaine does he finds the Card is no longer Kurt but _Blaine_. It offers his hand palm up and Blaine hesitantly places his on top. There's a layer of dirt on it from the ground, over a redness that's spreading and feels swollen. The Card's hand is perfect, though, that is, until it transforms in front of Blaine's eyes to match his injuries. Blaine pulls back his hand and the Cards moves back, too, a reflection.  
  
Brittany says, "You need to says its name."  
  
Blaine pulls at the chain at his neck: "The Mirror."

Before the Card draws up and into its sealed form, it leans in close to Blaine: "I wanted to meet you so much. I could finally summon enough power on my own to take these solid forms—I'm glad my plan to use a favorite of the Card Captor worked." It feels like a caress, suddenly, over Blaine's cheek, and Blaine closes his eyes tightly to stop a sudden onset of tears when the Card says, " _You're just so hard to love_."

  
#

Kurt takes him back to his room. He doesn't ask for permission and neither does Blaine tell him no. Anxiety is making his whole chest feel tight but maybe it'll be all right.

Kurt just says, "You're hurt." He helps Blaine with the first aid kit, he's so gentle and patient despite the number of times Blaine swallows down a hiss that Blaine waits until he's done and everything is all packed up and Kurt is standing in front of him and watching him a little warily, waiting, before he draws his bandaged hands onto his lap and says, "I kissed him."

Kurt huffs, "It took my form, I understand—"

"I knew it wasn't you. I still went out with him. I kissed him."  


Kurt stares at him, incredulous. "Are you trying to pick another fight?" He runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. "It's not even a him, it's a _card_."

That one actually hurts so Blaine doesn't swallow it back, "don't _say_ that."

Kurt seems to make a conscious decision to stop moving and instead cross his arms in front of his chest. "Why are we fighting? What am I supposed to get out of this?" He demands, "You knew it wasn’t me, you took care of it anyway because that’s always you, Blaine. And, okay, _you_ kissed it! _You_ cheated on me! And _you_ 're mad?"  
   
"Then get mad!"  
   
"Oh, I’m _furious_ , you psycho. What do you even want from me?"  
   
_I don't know. I want to know what's true. I want not to feel ashamed of caring this much._ "I want you to see me!"  
   
"I see you! I’m seeing you being annoying and weird and wanting some kind of, what? Validation for cheating on me with your pet card, as if that isn’t absolutely freaky enough on top of doing it while the thing looks like me! So how about this, Blaine? We—" Kurt breaks off, swallowing, _we’re done_ , Blaine thinks, and the fight goes out of him, "we need a break."  
   
"No—"  
   
"Yes, this—maybe we rushed in too quickly. This whole thing is strange enough without—god, Blaine, I don't want to have to worry about whether you'll be summoning and discarding some magical non-human for— _what_ —"

"I'm sorry, please, Kurt, that's not it, okay?" Blaine stands up, tries to get close, "I just want you to be real, not— _that_ , I've seen him and it's always horrible and it feels inevitable that you'll stop loving me because I've seen it, okay? I've felt it! I can't trust myself but I convinced myself I could trust you. But then, your job—I just needed to know, was this a joke? I just felt so out of control—"

"What are you talking about, you saw what?"

"It doesn't matter because I'll trust you now, okay? Unconditionally, this didn't mean anything."

"God, what—"

"You're _mad_ ," and next to that impassive face it's as if Kurt were saying, _yes, I care, if we get through this, it'll be okay_ , "It means something."

Kurt looks like he's ready to have Blaine committed; he swallows harshly, "I can't take any more of this conversation right now."

"Kurt—"

"I'll see you later, Blaine. Just—don't do anything stupid."

Kurt slams the door. Blaine tries to stop thinking _I knew it, I knew it, I knew it_.


	7. Chapter 7

"Blaine," and that's Artie at his door, "Blaine!" He feels bad about it but he really _really_ doesn't want to talk to anyone, much less do any one-on-one video interviews, he hasn't even gelled today. "Blaine, I _know_ you're in there. I have your place bugged!"

That's scary enough to get him out of bed and even remember to put on a hoodie before he opens the door. "Is it _true_?" he demands, already thinking of, well, mostly sex, it's not like he's doing anything illegal in his room he can panic about.

"No, I'm not a _creep_. And, anyway, what could possibly go on in here that I would want to know about?" Artie wheels inside and Blaine doesn't have the energy to stop him, he already used up all his dealing-with-the-world tickets for the day on his three-hour Contemporary Dance class and he really doesn't have anything to draw on right now.

"Artie, what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to give you this," Artie takes out a USB from the front pocket of his shirt and offers it to Blaine. "It's everything I have for the documentary."

"Are you done with it already?"

"How can I be done? You don't have them all yet, do you? There's one more." Artie fixes his glasses, probably to add drama to what he says next, "And then comes _Judgement Day_."

Blaine plops down on his bed, "I don't think that's what it's called." 

"Regardless," Blaine follows Artie with his eyes as he leaves the USB on his desk, "I wanted to know what you were going to do about it."

"Why?"

"Because I want to be there for it. But even if I'm not, I have to know."

" _Why_?"

"Because this story is about you, isn't it?" says Artie matter-of-factly, "Whatever you choose changes the narrative I'm going to tell."

Blaine shakes his instinctively, "It's not me, it's Card Captor Blaine."

"Even if that's true, it seems to me that whatever Card Captor Blaine chooses, it's something _you_ are going to have to live with. So maybe think about what you want. And preferably do it on film, even if it's your crappy phone camera."

#

The last Card sneaks up on him. It's late in the afternoon and, at Artie's insistence, they are in the middle of Central Park getting a few shots of The Maze. There's no approaching rumble, no being swamped with a destructive feeling. It's just the ground shaking and a pretty straightforward fissure opening up just between Blaine's feet; just some old-fashioned geological chaos from the last elemental card. It doesn't even care if Blaine knows its name because Brittany squeals in excitement, "Finally, The Earthy!" and the earthquake just goes on.

"This is perfect!" says Artie even as Sam has to hold on tight to his wheelchair to keep them both from a dangerous bounce. Just for that, Blaine spins his wand with an extra flourish when he calls out: "Trap it! _Maze_!" and it may not slow down The Earthy at all but at least this way no unsuspecting person will wander into the scene. 

The Earthy turns a little too wild at being denied its fun and Blaine loses his balance and falls painfully on his ass; there's nothing for it, though, Sam and Artie are trying to hang onto a tree, so he gets on his knees, holds the wand up high and yells: "Protect them! _Wood_!" The roots and branches steady them enough that he can finally look to Brittany. The ground is steadier below her feet, so much so that she gets to crouch down, touch the grass and lightly chide, "You should really be behaving better with my Card Captor."

"Brittany, what—" and Brittany says, "This Card is under The Sun and I'm so _close_."

Like a snake, a chunk of earth comes out of the ground and okay, good, he can stand back up, if only to run away and out of its range of impact. He thinks, frantically, would The Earthy burn? Would it absorb The Watery's attacks? Does he want to hack it to pieces with The Sword? "Blaine!" Sam yells and Blaine thinks _oh_ and swings his wand around and up: "Get it! _Wood_!"

The Wood is pretty gentle, Blaine thinks, but now there's something of a wicked sense of fun when it gets to wrap its branches around The Earthy in its serpentine, dragon-like form and _hold on, hold on, hold on_ — _if you can, I can;_ and then Blaine feels The Earthy winding down inside its wood cage, looks back to Sam and Artie out of the corner of his eye to make sure the camera is ready and chants, "Return to your true form! _Earthy_!"

On his hand, The Earthy is as innocuous as a piece of paper and it feels weird that things look so calm when inside he feels like there's a restless excess of energy that needs a release: the Cards are _excited_ and it's all he can do to grip his wand tight and rein them in. "Don't do that," says Brittany and she's glowing so bright that it's easy to obey, "those are yours right now, remember? Don't rein them in," _drown in their power_.

#

He writes his name on the Card slowly and carefully for Artie's camera and tries to ignore that Kurt is standing a few feet behind him in a slim suit and a glittery bow tie. Tries to forget that when he saw Kurt approaching he was startled enough to ask, "What are you doing here?"

"I have to see this through to the end."

Blaine dots the _i_ , hands the pen back to Brittany, and asks, "What happens now?"

And Sam says: "What happens is this," and he's as pale as the moon and when he tilts his head and snaps his fingers, all the Cards, Card Captor _Blaine_ 's Cards, scatter to the ground, limp.

"Sam?"

"Brittany, what is going on?" demands Artie.

"Sam, what are you doing?" But Blaine knows, as he approaches—"There are worse places than New York City, Blaine, like those with _wars_ "—as he steps in front of the scattered Cards—"I got a good deal"—and as he sends them up in the air and perfectly poised to take direction with just a flip of his hand—"Don't let anybody hurt you"—Blaine _knows._

The Moon says, "Use the Cards to defeat me." 

He _can't_. "This isn't happening," pleads Blaine.

"Is he for real?" demands Artie again and Brittany says, "He's under temporary contract to The Book, like Blaine and me."

"Why is he being a jerk about it?"

"It's someone else's magic in him, isn't it?" says Kurt. "He's not aware but it's not a being that has taken him over, it's the echo of someone else."

The Moon looks right into Blaine's wide eyes: "This is the Final Judgement."

Blaine thinks _I'm sorry_ because Brittany said The Moon would judge whether Blaine was worthy of being the Master of the Cards, she said _even if you don't want it, at least prove this wasn't a mistake,_ but-

"He's Sam, I can't hurt him!"

"No, it's that you _won't_." The Moon is swift and precise and it's all Blaine can do to chant, " _Shield_!" before shards of—what? _Light_? They are conjured out of thin air—burst out towards him. Blaine breathes hard, trying to keep his mind steady, tensing up to the very tips of the fingers of his clenched fists. "You think you can keep that up for long?" and The Moon is right, exerting power on The Shield is making him too weak too quickly, it requires too much concentration—"Moreover," and he's never seen Sam's lips curl that way before, "The Shield is one of _mine_."

Blaine screams.

He drops down at The Moon's feet and, in the distance, hears Brittany say, "Kurt, don't!"

Artie says, "He's _losing_."

"Well, if anybody helps him then he'll lose for sure! Trust him, okay?"

 _Dis_ - _aster_ , that's what Brittany said, and he can't let that happen. But, really, it's The Moon holding The Shield up for him to see and slowly placing it in the front pocket of Sam's shirt that gets Blaine back to his feet. _I have to do something_.

"I don't want to hurt you, okay?" He tells The Moon sincerely and twirls his wand, becoming one with the—" _Wood_!"

"Blaine, don't!"

The Wood takes hold: Sam's arms are extended, the branches around his waist and around his neck, and the image makes Blaine waver; a mistake: "You really don't know what you're doing, do you?"

The Moon breaks off with ease. Blaine scrambles back, suddenly afraid, before he's forced still by The Wood attacking _him_ instead.

"You're losing," and it feels like he's being held still by more than just branches and roots—by the disappointment spreading out from his chest, the anxiety pooling in his belly, and the profound feeling of hopelessness that chokes up his throat. "I can take them all, I _will_ take them all. The Cards will go back to The Book and you'll forget this ever happened."

" _No_ ," and it comes out a lot more steady than he expects, "No, that won't happen. I want them, they are mine, they saved me, they gave me— _everything_ ," and when he hears it, familiar, at the back of his mind, _if you can, I can_ , only then he realises, "this is not _right_ , nothing is right. I don't want this anymore," and Blaine doesn't know who he's pleading to but the more he does the more The Wood seems to be listening, "make it stop, all of you, _please_."

"What are you—?" 

"Blaine!" That's Kurt and Blaine doesn't understand why he's running, why he sounds scared—everything is too bright, but the Cards are there with him—The Moon draws back until Blaine can't see it anymore—and does Kurt _want the Cards_? Does The Moon? And what does Blaine have if even Sam is—

" _Please_." He wants to run, so he does.

#

 _There was a boy, a very strange, enchanted boy_ —

He hears: "What?—It's just a suggestion—It'll grow into something we can't control—What are we going to do, The Master— _but drowning is fine if you can breathe underwater, otherwise floaters are a good idea. Don't get discouraged, you're nearly there: very much a function of your container, already adaptable, like water_."

#

Blaine wakes up.

"You won," says Brittany and she's stroking Blaine's hair. He's in his room, on his bed, and his eyes get misty. Artie's USB is still on his desk.

Blaine starts talking.

#

"I live in constant terror of having to accept someone offering me an orange and then finding out it's not seedless and having to spit out the seeds in front of people when I eat it. What if I don't have a napkin? What if there isn't a trash bin? Will I have to spit them out in my hand and then put them in my pocket?"

"God, you're such a _freak_ ," says Santana, rolling her eyes, "and here I thought being scared of birds in my hair was kind of lame," but she pats Blaine's hand once so it's worth it.

#

"Okay, so close your eyes, what do you see?"

"Uh—"

"Right, yes, _nothing_ , because your eyes are closed, that's what my kindergarten teacher was trying to teach us!" and Blaine is gesticulating with his hands, "But _I_ said _ducks_ , because I was thinking of a very nice shirt my mom had just bought me for my birthday. It was pretty, and they were fancy ducks too, green, not yellow— _but_ , the point is, it wasn't there. So try to go into things with your eyes wide open and don't let your mind trip you up. That," he finishes triumphal, "that has to be it."

For a second Sam has an otherworldly look of confusion, like his face is not quite sure how to settle, but he does end up freezing it into a pretty respectable cringe: "I couldn't follow that."

"No?"

"No."

#

 _The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love_ —

#

"But imagine this," says Blaine, getting comfortable on their couch, "Imagine this person—they wouldn't play games, okay? You wouldn't have to second guess yourself all the time because, first of all—and this is crazy— _you would be enough for them_. They would never go— _oh! I'm actually a magical spy_ , you know? _Imagine_ ," and he throws his hands up in exasperation only to cross his arms and set them snuggly against his chest three seconds later, sulky.

Rachel is nodding solemnly, "Imagine trusting yourself!"

"Yeah," that one makes him frown, maybe squirm, but still: "It's been so easy talking to you lately," Blaine admits, suddenly feeling guilty, "saying the words out loud, I mean."

"Well, that's what all your friends are here for." 

The door opens while they are in the middle of hugging it out. It's Kurt and, despite Blaine's first instinct being to look up at him pathetically, he looks back at Blaine pleasantly enough, "Hello Blaine."

"We are talking _boys_ ," Rachel announces, pointing not at all subtly at Kurt with her forefinger. Blaine's horrified but Kurt's demeanour doesn't change at all. 

"I'm glad. I have homework so have fun you two." He nods at Blaine like he's not mad, like he's okay while Blaine feels like he wants to put a fork through his own hand, and vanishes behind his curtain.

#

"Blaine? Blaine—?"

#

Kurt is an impenetrable wall of casual politeness and Blaine is _dying_. There was a time, maybe at the end of their fight, when Blaine thought, maybe a little desperately: _everything will be all right_ , because Kurt was angry at him but anger seems to Blaine something fixable. Now he's bouncing between trying to convince himself Kurt is playing with him, he's not that indifferent, not really, and trying to stop this thought from taking over: _it's over, I lost_.

#

"Blaine, could you maybe open the door?"

#

"What is happening?" and he's bowing, and the audience is leaping to their feet, and Professor Wiley is saying, "I've never seen such exquisite footwork, such exquisite swordplay, such exquisite improv work, such exquisite—"

Artie pushes a camera in front of his face and demands, "Is there anything you want to say?"

"Well—"

Rachel breaks into a weepy smile, "You did so well! You are so good! You are wonderful!"

"Everything's all right," Sam says, "you are so happy right now, aren't you?"

"Yes," admits Blaine, "but what is happening right now?"

#

"Blaine! Blaine, _please_ —"

#

"Trauma," says Blaine, "that's it, that's the whole thing."

"Hmm," says Sam, "tell me about the duck again, I didn't get the duck."

"There's nothing to get." Blaine is annoyed now. "You just want to hear about it because it's me saying it. It's all me, _all_ the time. How do I make it stop?"

 _Wait_.

#

They sit in a circle to share. Artie says, "What's going on with you, Blaine?"

"I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what's real and sometimes I'm so sure and yet it's not." Artie's nod is very understanding. "This, for example: it's happening; but it's like putting on a play, it's like writing Real People Fanfiction. He's not Sam, she's not Brittany, she's not Rachel, and you're not Artie."

"Do you need to go lie down?"

If it's true, thinks Blaine, _the strings are coming out of my hands_.

#

"—Stop!" and maybe he can't stop himself from crying but Kurt at least says, "You've said that already. Tell me something you haven't told me before."

Blaine presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and thinks it through: "You're the only one that is different here. The only one I can't—control? The only one who doesn't lo—like me. But you don't hate me either. You just don't care. And I— _I_ —"

"Maybe you should try listening closer." Kurt stretches out his hand and Blaine doesn't hesitate in taking it. He's not paying attention at first because it feels like weeks since Kurt has been this close but, slowly, he realizes there's a faint buzzing, like an old radio, and a very faint voice says,"— _see, a fail-safe_." Then, defiant: " _It's not against the rules_!"

" _No, it's not, he was already way past that. Mr. Anderson won, didn't he_?"

And, just like that, Blaine remembers, and he thinks, _no, I didn't_. It wasn't good enough. So he gathers all his toys and realizes he can go home.

#

It's Kurt singing, of course it is: _and be loved in return_.

#

Blaine wakes up.

The Moon says, "You got the Cards to grant your wish."

"Yes," Blaine blinks, making sure he's seeing clearly, "but I don't need that. I don't need a puppet world where everything is right for me because I made it so. I don't want to hide. That's not what I want."

"It doesn't matter. You won them. I couldn't pry them away from you."

Blaine shakes his head, "Maybe you can call it that but the truth is, they just wanted to help me, like they always do. Winning is something else. It's making sure nobody gets hurt, including Sam. So I'm going to break this spell. I don't know whose echo you are but it's not right that he's bound to anything he doesn't want to be."

The Moon actually manages to show the beginnings of amusement, "You can't—"

"You'll see," says Blaine and there's not a single doubt in his mind, "I _can_ ," and when he holds out his wand and calls forth for help, it's like the stars are answering his request, so much so that by the time he's ready, the top of his wand is a single revolving five-pointed star with small feathered wings, " _Release_!"

"You're not strong enough—"

"You can always be strong enough if you work together. _Windy_!" The Card immobilizes The Moon in front of him: "Please help me sever this contract. _Shield_! _Sword_!" One to protect Sam, one to cut through his chains; Blaine swings down.

#

"It worked!" The Windy stays with him until he has Sam on the grass and he's steady on his feet but that doesn't stop Brittany from throwing her arms around him, "Card Captor Blaine, don't go creating your own pocket universes and using complex spells like that again, you're not trained yet!"

Blaine pats her arm, "Is that what it was?"

"It was a very impressive show of power, even if you needed a little push to gain control of it," says Madame Tibideaux and Blaine just sort of pats Brittany's arm for a moment without thinking, at a loss.

"She's my employer," says Kurt.

"She's not _my_ employer," says Brittany, "What do you even want with the Cards?"

"Not them in particular, I assure you," says Madame Tibideaux, "I merely provided a place to keep them hidden, a favor for an old friend. But I'm going to be honest, I was very worried when they escaped, that's why I asked Mr. Hummel for his expertise."

"Which is?" prompts Artie.

"I'm a collector," admits Kurt.

Brittany frowns, "Don't get any ideas. The Cards are Blaine's, he won them—"

"Yeah, of course—"

He leaves them bickering to plop down again on the ground and take out the mysterious new addition to his deck. Artie wheels up, "What is that?"

"A Card I found just now," Blaine hesitates only a bit, "I think it's The Moon."

"It's that the name?"

"No, it's The Hope," and at the back of the card there's one five pointed star with feathered wings. He feels so happy he doesn't even mind it when Madame Tibideaux leans down to take a look. 

"Well, it looks you might actually get to master the Cards someday, Mr. Anderson."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you have a long way to go."

#

He approaches Kurt when they are walking towards the exit. He doesn't really mean to but a mixture of happiness and familiarity makes him sway way too close and makes their hands brush. Kurt doesn't pull away.

Encouraged, he says, "Hey."

"Hey," Kurt says back softly.

He stops to see if Kurt will as well and he does. They stand in silence for a moment, letting everyone else drift by.

"We're getting left behind," Kurt says, his hands in his pockets and his head tilted to the side, but Blaine can see the ghost of a smile threatening to break through, the twist of amusement.

"We know our way," Blaine says, biting back a grin himself.

"You were amazing today," Kurt tells him sincerely.

"Kurt, I don't know what I would have done without you, okay? You're always there to show me the way. You told me you would see this through and you did and if I'm here it's because you're the one person I can never hide from." Blaine steps closer and he feels so certain of this, he dares the future to prove him wrong: "You're my guiding star."

"You're mine, too," Kurt bites his bottom lip, suddenly emotional. "I miss you."

"I miss you too. I'm sorry about what happened with The Mirror. I should have never said those things. I should have never tried to test you that way, that was unfair."

"I was doing something of the same, wasn't I? Keeping things from each other wasn't fair to either of us."

"Kurt—"

"Just come here, already," says Kurt fondly, pulling Blaine forward until they're kissing, until he has Blaine right where he wants him, in the circle of his arms, just where Blaine wants to be.


End file.
